International Library of Psychology
Philosophy and Scientific Method
Psychological Types
International Library of Psychology
Philosophy and Scientific Method
GENERAL EDITOR — 0. K. OGDEN, M.A. (< Magdalen* College , Cambridge)
by C.
IC.
Philosophical Studies ...
The Misuse of Mind ....
Conflict and Dream * . . .
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus .
Psychological Types* . . •
Scientific Thought* ....
The Meaning of Meaning.
Individual Psychology
Speculations ( Preface by Jacob JEJ stein )
The Psychology op Reasoning*
The Philosophy of 'As If*
The Nature of Intelligence .
Telepathy and Clairvoyance .
The Growth of the Mind
The Mentality of Apes .
Psychology of Religious Mysticism
The Philosophy of Music .
The Psychology of a Musical Prodigy
Principles op Literary Criticism .
Metaphysical Foundations of Science
Thought and the Brain * .
Physique and Character*
Psychology of Emotion ...
Problems of Personality .
The History of Materialism • •
Personality*
Educational Psychology .
Language and Thought of the Child
Sex and Repression in Savage Society
Comparative Philosophy .
Social Life in the Animal World .
How Animals Find their Way About
The Social Insects ....
Theoretical Biology ....
Possibility
The Technique of Controversy
The Symbolic Process
Political Pluralism
History of Chinese Political Thought
Integrative Psychology*
The Analysis of Matter
Plato's Theory of Ethics.
Historical Introduction to Modern Psychology
Creative Imagination .
Colour and Colour Theories
Biological Principles
The Trauma of Birth
The Statistical Method in Economics
The Art of Interrogation
The Growth of Reason .
Human Speech ......
Foundations of Geometry and Induction
The Laws of Feeling ....
The Mental Development of the Child
Eidetic Imagery
The Concentric Method .
The Foundations of Mathematics
The Philosophy of the Unconscious
Outlines of Greek Philosophy
The Psychology of Children's Drawings
Invention and the Unconscious
The Theory of Legislation .
The Social Life of Monkeys
The Development of the Sexual Impu:
Constitution Types in Delinquency
Sciences of Man in the Making .
Ethical Relativity ....
The Gestalt Theory
by G. E. Moore, Litt.D.
by Karin Stephen
by W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S.
. by L. Wittgenstein
. by C. G. Jung, M.D.
by C. D. Broad, jLitt.D.
Ogden and I. A. Richards
. by Alfred Adler
. . by T. E. Hulme
• by Eugenio Rignano
. . by H. Vaihingbr
. by L. L. Thurstons
• * by R. Tischnbr
• . by K. Koffka
• . by W. KOhler
• . by J. H. Leu ba
. by W. Pole, F.R.S.
. . by G. Revbsz
. by I. A. Richards
by E. A. Burtt, Ph.D.
by H. Pi&ron
by Ernst Kretschmer
by J. T. MacCurdy, M.D.
i honour of Morton Prince
. . by F. A. Lange
by R. G. Gordon, M.D.
.. . by Charles Fox
. . . by J . Piaget
by B. Malinowski, D.Sc.
. by P. Masson-Ouksbl
. . by F. A L VERDES
. • by E. Rabaud
by W. Morton Wheeler
. by J. von UbxkUll
by Scott Buchanan
by
by B. B. Bogoslovsky
.by J. F. Markry
. by K. C. Hsiao
by Liang Chi-Chao
, by W. M. Marston
Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
. by R. C. Lodge
. by G. Murphy
by June E. Downey
Christine Ladd-Franklin
. by J. H. Woodger
by Otto Rank
by P. S. Florence
by E. R. Hamilton
by Frank Lorimbr
by Sir Richard Paget
by Jean Nicod
by F. Paulhan
. by K. Buhlbr
by E. R. Jarnsch
by M. Laignbl-Lavastinb
• by F. P. Ramsey
by E. von Hartmann
. . by E. Zeller
. • by Hblga Eng
by J. M. Montmasson
. by Jeremy Bbntham
• _ • by s. ZUCKBRMAN
by R. E. Monby-Kyrlk
• by w. A. Willhmsb
by K . A. Kirkpatrick
by E. A. Wbstsxmarck
by Bruno Pbtermann
by C. Daly King
The Psychology of Consciousness & < j . jjaly King
The Spirit of Language by K. Vossler
The Dynamics of Education by Hilda Taba
The Nature of Learning^ ...... by George Humphrey
* Asterisks denote that other boohs by the same author are included in the series.
Psychological Types
or
The Psychology of Individuation
By
C. G. JUNG
Dr Med. et fur . of the University of Zurich
Author of “ Psychology of the Unconscious 99
.Translated by
H. GODWIN BAYNES, M.B., B.C. Cantab
PANTHEON BOOKS
NEW YORK
First f>tdl>lisHsd in England J9-2J.
Rs printed 1924, 1926, T932, 1938,
* 943 * *949 <*'>*<2 Jr 953 -
Printed in Gxeat Britain
by T. and A. CowsTABi.it Ltd., Hopetonn Street,
Printers to the University of Bdinbnxgb
CONTENTS
PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE i-xxii
FOREWORD 7
INTRODUCTION 9
The Two Mechanisms : Extraversion and Intro-
version. The Four Psychological Basic Functions :
Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition, 9
Chapter I. The Problem of Types in the
History of Classical and Medieval
Thought 15
x. Psychology in the Classical Age : the Gnostics ,
Tertullian , and Origen 15
2. The Theological Disputes of the Ancient
Church 30
3. The Problem of Transubstantiation 33
4. Nominalism and Realism 37
(a) The Problem of the Universalia in the Classical
Age, 38 ; (b) The Universalia Problem in Scholasti-
cism, 52 ; (c) Abelard’s Attempt at Conciliation, 62
5. The Holy Communion Controversy between
Luther and Zwingli 84
Chapter II. Schiller's Ideas upon the Type
Problem
1. Letters on the Msthetic Education of Man 87
(а) The Superior and the Inferior Functions, 87 ;
(б) Concerning the Basic Instincts, 123
2. A Discussion on Naive and Sentimental Poetry 163
(a) The Naive Attitude, 165 ; (6) The Sentimental
Attitude, 166 ; [c) The Idealist and the Realist, 168
PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
Chapter III. The Apollonian and the Dionysian
Chapter IV. The Type Problem in the Discern-
ment of Human Character
t. General Remarks upon Jordan's Types
2. Special Description and Criticism of the
Jordan Types
(a) The Introverted Woman (the more-impassioned
woman), 191 ; (b) The Extraverted Woman (the
less-impassioned woman), 195; (c) The Extraverted
Man, 200 ; (d) The Introverted Man, 204
Chapter V. The Problem of Types in Poetry
Carl Spittblkr's Prometheus and Epimetheus
1. Introductory Remarks on Spitteler's Character-
ization of Types
2. A Comparison of Spitteler's with Goethe's
Prometheus
3. The Significance of the Reconciling Symbol
(a) The Brahmanic Conception of the Problem of
the Opposites, 242 ; (6) Concerning the Brahmanic
Conception of the Reconciling Symbol, 247 ;
(c) The Reconciling Symbol as the Principle of
Dyn am ic Regulation, 257; (d) The Reconciling
Symbol in Chinese Philosophy, 264
4. The Relativity of the Symbol
(a) The Service of Woman and the Service of the
Soul, 272 ; (b) The Relativity of the Idea of God
in Meister Eckehart, 297
5. The Nature of the Reconciling Symbol in
Spitteler
Chapter VI. The Type Problem in Psychiatry
Chapter VII. The Problem of Typical Atti-
tudes in Aesthetics
PACT
170
I84
IQI
207
215
234
272
320
337
358
CONTENTS
Chapter VIII. The Problem of Types in Modern
Philosophy
1. William James ’ Types
2 . The Characteristic Pairs of Opposites in
James ’ Types
(a) Rationalism v. Empiricism, 382 ; (i b ) Intellect-
ualism v. Sensationalism, 387; (c) Idealism v.
Materialism, 387 ; ( 4 ) Optimism v. Pessimism, 389 ;
{e) Religiousness v. Irreligiousness, 391 ; (/) Inde-
terminism v. Determinism, 393 ; (g) Monism v.
Pluralism, 396 ; (h) Dogmatism v. Scepticism, 396
3. General Criticism of James’ Conception
Chapter IX. The Type Problem in Biography
Chapter X. General Description of the Types
A. Introduction
B. The Extraverted Type
(I) The General Attitude of Consciousness
(II) The Attitude of the Unconscious
(III) The Peculiarities of Basic Psychological
Functions in the Extraverted Attitude
1. Thinking, 428; 2. The Extraverted Thinking
Type, 434; 3. Feeling, 446; 4. The Extraverted
Feeling Type, 448; 5. Recapitulation of Extra-
verted Rational Types, 452; 6. Sensation, 456;
7. The Extraverted Sensation Type, 457 ; 8. Intui-
tion, 461 ; 9* The Extraverted Intuitive Type,
464 ; 10. Recapitulation of Extraverted Irrational
Types, 468
C. The Introverted Type
(I) The General Attitude of Consciousness
(II) The Unconscious Attitude
(III) Peculiarities of the Basic Psychological
Functions in the Introverted Attitude
372
382
397
401
412
416
416
422
428
471
477
480
I. Thinking, 480; 2. The Introverted Thinking
Type, 484; 3. Feeling, 489; 4. The Introverted
Feeling Type, 492; 5. Recapitulation of Intro-
verted Rational Types, 495; 6. Sensation, 498;
7. The Introverted Sensation Type, 500 ; 8.
Intuition, 505 ; 9. The Introverted Intuitive
Type, 508 ; 10. Recapitulation of Introverted
Irrational Types, 51 1; n. The Principal and
Auxiliary Functions, 513
Chapter XI. Definitions
I. Abstraction, 520; 2. Affect, 522; 3. Affectivity,
523; 4. Anima, 524; 5. Apperception, 524; 6.
Archaism, 524 ; 7. Assimilation, 525 ; 8. Attitude,
526; 9. Collective, 530; 10. Compensation, 531;
II. Concretism, 533; 12. Consciousness, 535;
13. Constructive, 536; 14. Differentiation, 539;
15. Dissimilation, 540 ; 16. Ego, 540; 17. Emotion,
541 ; 18. Enantiodromia, 541 ; 19. Extra version,
542; 20. Feeling, 543; 21. Feeling-into, 547; 22.
Function, 547 ; 23. Idea, 547 ; 24. Identification,
55 i l 2 5 - Identity, 552; 26. Image, 554; 27.
Individual, 560 ; 28. Individuality, 561 ; 29.
Individuation, 561 ; 30. Inferior Function, 563 ;
31. Instinct, 565; 32. Intellect, 566; 33. Intro-
jection, 566 ; 34. Introversion, 567 ; 35. Intuition,
567; 36. Irrational, 569; 37. Libido, 571; 38.
Objective Plane, 572 ; 39. Orientation, 572 ; 40.
" Participation Mystique”, 572; 41. Phantasy,
573; 42. Power-Complex, 582; 43. Projection,
582; 44. Rational, 583; 45. Reductive, 584; 46.
Self, 585 ; 47. Sensation, 585 ; 48. Soul, 588 ; 49.
Soul-Image, 596; 50. Subjective Plane, 599; 51.
Symbol, 601 ; 52. Synthetic, 610 ; 53. Thinking,
61 1 ; 54. Transcendent Function, 612 ; 55. Type,
612 ; 56. Unconscious, 613 ; 57. Will, 616.
Conclusion
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
In presenting this, Jung’s crowning work, to the
English-speaking world, I would like to make a
brief sketch of the curve of the author’s thought ;
for, like everything that is rooted in reality, Jung’s
standpoint shows a definite line of development,
and the following of this progression may add a
historical sidelight to the understanding of the
present work.
I would have preferred to avoid the troubled
waters of controversy, but it does not seem possible
to relate the history of Jung’s standpoint without
at the same time contrasting it with that of Freud.
That this somewhat thankless task was necessary
is proved by the still frequent coupling of the two
schools of thought under a common denomination,
suggesting that the general mind has, as yet, failed
to make a clear distinction between the contrasting
standpoints.
Freud undoubtedly is an analytical genius.
One has only to read his early studies upon the
aetiology of hysteria to be struck by the virtuosity
of his subtle reasoning. It was an intuitive
capacity of no ordinary shrewdness that revealed
the hidden significance of the hysterical syndrome.
For it opened the way to an entirely new con-
ception of the unconscious, and led to a rediscovery
of the dream as a significant and purposeful product
of that same unconscious activity of which the
hysterical manifestations were a somatic expression.
ii TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Freud was like a master-detective tracking
down the incriminating complex in the uncon-
scious, while Breuer, his colleague, contented
himself with exorcizing the repressed elements
from above by abreaction under hypnosis.
In medical science we can discern two main
human types or attitudes whose behaviour towards
the therapeutic problem presents a characteristic
contrast. The chief interest of the one lies in the
welfare of mankind and the healing of his patient ;
the other’s interest is monopolized by the aetiologi-
cal problem presented by the patient’s condition,
and is concerned in a less degree with its remedy.
The one attempts to discover a remedy before
understanding the problem; the other tends to
become so completely immersed in the problem
that the original objective, e.g. the healing of
mankind, is often lost to view.
We do not find the greatest minds succumbing
to either of these frailties, but it is not out of place
to outline such typical predispositions, since the
vague benevolence and imperfect understanding
of the one are as far below the scientific de-
sideratum, as are the other’s exclusive ardours for
the “ scientific ” chase a blemish upon the ideal of
humanity.
While Breuer, therefore, seems to have been
content with the therapeutic efficacy of hypnotic
abreaction, Freud found in this procedure merely
a starting-point for a further investigation of those
avenues which the abreacted material opened out,
and, as he rather naively admits, no one was more
surprised than himself to observe that this further
investigation of the patient’s subterranean activities
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE ill
produced valuable therapeutic results. It is, of
course, true that some of the most beneficent
therapeutic measures have been discovered in
precisely this way, as incidental by-products as it
were, of the process of scientific investigation, but
for the purpose of comparison it is important to
stress the fact that Freud’s approach was pre-
eminently that of the empirical investigator,
because it is in this attitude that we find both
his strength and his limitation as a psychologist.
We will return again to this point when the
picture has been more fully outlined.
While Freud was enduring the obloquy of
the psychological pioneer in Vienna, Jung was
approaching similar conclusions from a very dif-
ferent angle in Zurich. By a further elaboration
of the word-association experiments formerly em-
ployed by Galton and Wundt for other ends, he
succeeded in the most delicate task of devising
objective criteria for the recognition of uncon-
scious complexes. The discovery of prolonged
reaction time, perseveration, etc., associated with
affect-toned presentations led to his invaluable
formulation of the complex, from which he
advanced to the same fundamental concept of
repression which Freud had reached by the clinical
route. This naturally brought the two pioneers
together, and Jung found in Freud’s masterly
analytical technique the admitted highroad to the
unconscious processes.
In so far as it was purely a question of method,
Freud and Jung found themselves in harmony,
but the study of psychological processes can never
remain a mere question of method ; sooner or later
iv TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
it must challenge the investigator to produce a
philosophic standpoint. And here a basic psycho-
logical difference began to make itself felt. Freud
the empiricist wanted to limit his psychological
principles to empirically ascertainable matters of
fact. On the lines of orthodox scientific deter-
minism he preferred an exclusively causal and
reductive account of the psyche. Jung, on the
other hand, appreciated the fact that man was
more than a variously disordered object — he was
also a self-creating subject. He argued that the
causal explanation cannot be regarded as exclusive
in the psychological realm, since the final or
purposive explanation finds equal justification in
human experience. He began to feel that the in-
evitable sexual interpretations, however widely the
term might be stretched, were too poor a render-
ing of the passionate and infinitely diverse aims
of the human soul. In harmony, therefore, with
Robert Mayer’s conception in the realm of physics,
he developed the energic conception of the libido,
thus lifting the whole subject from a one-sided and
purely empiricistic standpoint to the level of uni-
versal concepts, where science and philosophy are
able to understand one another.
The actual point of divergence between the two
standpoints occurred, significantly enough, over
the question of the mother-imago. As is well
known, Freud’s interpretation of the mother-
image in dreams is exclusively referred to the
actual mother or mother-surrogate. Jung con-
tended that the almost magical influence of the
parent-imago with its supreme dynamic effect
upon the whole course of a man’s life, not only
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
v
shaping his actions, thoughts, and relations to the
world with secret and invisible determination,
but also creating the figures of the father and
mother deities in his religious and fantasy life,
could find no final explanation in the actual
events of infantile and adolescent experience.
The difficulty was admitted by Freud, but the
acceptance of inherited racial experience as an
integral factor in psychic life opened such menacing
vistas 1 , involving frank disaster to the compre-
hensive system he had devised and was prepared
to demonstrate to the world, that he resolutely
shut his eyes to the possibility of this boundless
and primeval continuity. He was only prepared
to explain the discrete, individual psyche, and
Jung’s conception of the collective unconscious
opened the door to unnamed things from the
jungle and primeval forest : it introduced a world
of unknown elemental forces which must be un-
conditionally excluded from a scientific system.
But, apart from the considerations above
alluded to, Jung’s argument was incontestable.
The lungs of the new-born infant know how to
breathe, the heart knows how to beat, the whole
co-ordinated organic system knows how to function,
only because the infant’s body is the product of
inherited functional experience. The whole story
of man’s struggle for adaptation to life, his whole
phylogenetic history, are represented in that * know-
ing how ’ of the infant’s body. Is it then blindness
or fear that urges us to deny to the infant psyche
that same functional inheritance which is so mani-
1 Cf. Jung's treatment of the “ terrible mother ” motif, in the
Psychology of the Unconscious .
hr TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
it must challenge the investigator to produce a
philosophic standpoint. And here a basic psycho-
logical difference began to make itself felt. Freud
the empiricist wanted to limit his psychological
principles to empirically ascertainable matters of
fact. On the lines of orthodox scientific deter-
minism he preferred an exclusively causal and
reductive account of the psyche. Jung, on the
other hand, appreciated the fact that man was
more than a variously disordered object — he was
also a self-creating subject. He argued that the
causal explanation cannot be regarded as exclusive
in the psychological realm, since the final or
purposive explanation finds equal justification in
human experience. He began to feel that the in-
evitable sexual interpretations, however widely the
term might be stretched, were too poor a render-
ing of the passionate and infinitely diverse aims
of the human soul. In harmony, therefore, with
Robert Mayer’s conception in the realm of physics,
he developed the energic conception of the libido,
thus lifting the whole subject from a one-sided and
purely empiricistic standpoint to the level of uni-
versal concepts, where science and philosophy are
able to understand one another.
The actual point of divergence between the two
standpoints occurred, significantly enough, over
the question of the mother-imago. As is well
known, Freud’s interpretation of the mother-
image in dreams is exclusively referred to the
actual mother or mother-surrogate. Jung con-
tended that the almost magical influence of the
parent-imago with its supreme dynamic effect
upon the whole course of a man’s life, not only
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
v
shaping his actions, thoughts, and relations to the
world with secret and invisible determination,
but also creating the figures of the father and
mother deities in his religious and fantasy life,
could find no final explanation in the actual
events of infantile and adolescent experience.
The difficulty was admitted by Freud, but the
acceptance of inherited racial experience as an
integral factor in psychic life opened such menacing
vistas 1 , involving frank disaster to the compre-
hensive system he had devised and was prepared
to demonstrate to the world, that he resolutely
shut his eyes to the possibility of this boundless
and primeval continuity. He was only prepared
to explain the discrete, individual psyche, and
Jung’s conception of the collective unconscious
opened the door to unnamed things from the
jungle and primeval forest : it introduced a world
of unknown elemental forces which must be un-
conditionally excluded from a scientific system.
But, apart from the considerations above
alluded to, Jung’s argument was incontestable.
The lungs of the new-born infant know how to
breathe, the heart knows how to beat, the whole
co-ordinated organic system knows how to function,
only because the infant’s body is the product of
inherited functional experience. The whole story
of man’s struggle for adaptation to life, his whole
phylogenetic history, are represented in that * know-
ing how ’ of the infant’s body. Is it then blindness
or fear that urges us to deny to the infant psyche
that same functional inheritance which is so mani-
i Cf. Jung's treatment of the “terrible mother" motif, in the
Psychology of the Unconscious .
vi TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
festly present in the other organs ? What is this
dark fear of our archaic past which prompts us to
reject the possibility of any psychic experience
other than that of our individual lives ?
At all events it is clear that, once the existence
of these inherited psychic structures is admitted
as the basis of psychic activity, that conception of
the unconscious and its contents which regards it
as derived exclusively from objective experience
in the single individual life must go by the board.
Here, then, was the alternative which, from the
historical standpoint, we must regard as crucial.
Either Jung’s conception of the collective uncon-
scious must be admitted, and with it the whole
inner world of the subject, wherein the inner
images or archetypes are granted an equal deter-
mining power with the objects of the outer world,
or the one-sided empirical system must be main-
tained with its somewhat arbitrary postulates,
and the whole disturbing vision of the collective
unconscious be rejected as a fantastic impossibility.
J ung’s great work, Psychology of the Unconscious,
was the final statement of his separation from
and advance beyond the Freudian standpoint, and
Freud’s reaction to this work made it clear that
he too recognized an insuperable opposition. For
in this work Jung did not confine himself to a
reduction of the Miller fantasies to their in-
stinctive roots; he also identified the personal
themes with universal religious and mythological
conceptions, thus raising them to a level of general
importance. But, in so doing, he also proved the
necessity of the synthetic standpoint in analytical
psychology — a demonstration that bore unavoid-
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE vfl
able implications unfavourable to the Freudian
position.
That the divergence between Freud and Jung
must sooner or later have become acute will, I
think, be clear when we remember that between
the two men there existed not only the difference
of race but also a radical difference of type. An
extravert, by his very nature, is bound to produce
a psychology differing essentially from that of the
introvert. For Freud the aims of empirical
science, with its centripetal bias towards a min ute
and detailed analysis of observable facts, were
absolute; whereas for Jung a purely objective
psychology was not enough, in that it entirely
omitted the undeniable reality and power of the idea.
This is not the place to enter into a discussion
of the relative values of the extraverted empiricistic
and the introverted abstracting attitudes in human
thought; the struggle of these two elements, as
Jung shows in the present work, is synonymous
with the history of human culture. They are
both essential as mutual correctives, and it is only
when either tendency becomes a one-sided habitual
attitude that commonsense steps in and makes
its inscrutable judgment. In science these two
general tendencies appear as the twin capacities
of empirical observation of facts and of intellectual
abstraction from the facts observed of generally
valid principles, but only in the man of genius do
we find both capacities fully and symmetrically
developed.
In my view, criticism of Freud’s achievement
should be based not upon the fact that he failed
to perceive the possibility of a general application
vlH TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
of his ideas — this he apprehended only too clearly
— but upon his inability to frame concepts of general
validity.
He attempted to make the infinitely complex
phenomena of the psyche harmonize with theories
intuitively derived from clinical material; but he
was unable to enlarge or reconstruct his theoretical
system to embrace the wider aspects of human
experience and culture. The normal was con-
sidered in terms of the pathological.
A gradual, but very definite, movement of
intelligent opinion away from the Freudian stand-
point at the present time is, in my view, a
commonsense reaction to the damaging deprecia-
tion of essential human values involved in this
reductive valuation of the psyche. For the reduc-
tive standpoint fails to see that every complex is
Janus-faced, and that the energy invested in it is
never purely regressive, but is rather a reculer
pour mietuc sauter. The extraordinary vitality of
the infantile complex would be quite inexplicable
on the supposition that it was a wholly regressive
tendency. But it demands a synthetic standpoint
to perceive that every dawning possibility in life
is heralded by the image of the child, the symbol
of eternal youth, and that the infantile complex
with its simplicity and trust in life is also the
growing point of the developing personality.
Every child perceives, what the investigator may
fail to see, that a living man in his most eager and
productive moments exhibits certain essential char-
acters of childhood. Creative activity demands the
power and complexity of the man as well as the
simple attitude of the child. But Jung himself
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE lx
deals so fully and so much more ably with the
limitations of the purely reductive standpoint, that
I need not elaborate this aspect of the subject here.
It has been argued that psycho-analysis does
not claim to be more than a therapeutic technique
and a method of research, and that it is irrelevant
for the psychologist to concern himself with the
question of human development or with the in-
evitable ancillary problems of morality, religion,
and human relationship. In this very argument
the essential limitations of this standpoint stand
self-confessed, since a psychology that excludes
the most vital problems of life from its sphere of
responsibility requires no further criticism. It is
already moribund. Actually, of course, a psycho-
logic nihilism which broke down every individual
form into its elements and put nothing in its
place could not, conceivably, have anything but
disastrous therapeutic results. But Freud does
put something positive and definite in its place;
for there always remains the transference to the
analyst, which, in the case of a positive transfer-
ence, involves a gradual assimilation by the patient
to the analyst’s general attitude to life, and in the
alternative case a very definite rejection of the man
and all his ways.
This unconscious identification with the analyst
is quite outside the sphere of the latter’s control.
It is inherent in the analytical relationship. But
for the analyst to wash his hands of this uncon-
scious effect, with its far-reaching moral influence
upon the patient’s subsequent development, is as
irresponsible as though a surgeon were to shut his
eyes to the inevitable dangers of haemorrhage and
A*
X
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
sepsis. The question of moral responsibility,
therefore, is inherent in analytical practice, and,
since this is so, we have every right to demand of
a practical psychological system that it shall
attempt to discover the fundamental laws of
human development and, as far as possible, to
formulate them.
We said at the beginning that Freud was an
empirical investigator, and that this was both his
strength and his limitation. It is his strength,
because it required the empirical attitude to discover
and establish the psycho-analytic technique ; and it
is his limitation, because the general attitude to
life which is governed solely by objective facts
and considerations is quite incapable of judging
man as a subject. If, as Freud points out in
Totem and Taboo , human morality can be traced
back to the first primeval act of parricide, a deri-
vative of some remote arboreal conflict between
the parent’s authority and the son’s lust for his
father’s wives, then morality can exist only as a
constituent of herd-psychology, and the individual
moral law is as much a delusion as is free will to
a determinist. It is obvious that a purely objective
standpoint must similarly interpret all the realities
of the inner world as mere derivatives or reflects of
objective facts. Man is wholly determined, there-
fore, by things outside himself. He is nothing but
a “ singe raU'\ a mere mechanism that gets out of
order, and, by an appropriate use of the correct
method, can be put right again.
This standpoint is well illustrated by the
Freudian interpretation of dreams, which always
explains the dream-figures as carefully disguised
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
aa
ignoring the possibility that such images may also
be symbols of subjective realities existing in their
own right.
The Freudian standpoint, then, in attempting
to explain all the phenomena of human psychology
in terms of objective facts, remains one-sided, and
the extent of its limitations may conceivably be
measured by the intolerance with which it discusses
or ignores every standpoint that ventures beyond
its circumscribed terrain.
Since there have always been large numbers of
men for whom the objects and experiences of the
psychic life bear a more immediate sense of reality
than the world of objective facts, it is clear that
a purely objective account of the psychological
processes could not win any considerable support
beyond the specialized limit of its own peculiar
faculty. But, however much the historical eye
may regard the wider subjective valuation and
synthetic method of Jung as the inevitable response
of psychology to essential human demands, the
greatest honour must none the less be given to
Jung, for, not only was he the first psychologist
to perceive these demands, but he also voiced them
in principles whose universality could embrace the
heights and the depths of the psyche and com-
prehend its manifold diversity.
In establishing the two typical mechanisms of
introversion and extraversion together with the
main categories of human types based upon this
fundamental antithesis, Jung has demonstrated
the impossibility of every attempt to formulate a
generally valid theory of human psychology which
ignores these typical differences. For a theory
whose validity is incontestable for the psyche from
xfi TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
which it originated proves itself worthless and
even misleading for an individual of another type.
From considerations such as these we must confess
our inability to devise any rigid or dogmatic
formula which can be authoritatively promulgated
as a general system of psychological therapy. A
physician once justly complained to Jung that he
had made analysis so difficult. It is certainly true
that the pronouncements of Freud relieve the
analyst of a very considerable onus. He is not
required to ask himself What is the individual
way of this particular subject ? He has merely to
reduce his patient’s psychological material to its
elementary constituents according to prescribed
‘ orthodox ’ formulations, and if the patient is not
satisfied he either proves himself psychologically
inadequate to receive the truth, or so immersed in
his morbid state that the analytical light serves
only to reveal its impenetrable obscurities.
In his sub-title to this book Jung has called it
the Psychology of Individuation, and therewith
he affirms the essential principle of his philosophy ;
for to Jung the psyche is a world which contains
all the elements of the greater world, with the
same destructive and constructive forces — a plural-
istic universe in which the individual either fulfils
or neglects his essential r6le of creator.
The individuality is the central co-ordinating
principle of this realm, analogous to the principle
of royalty in the nation; and, in so far as this
co-ordinating will achieves an effective command
of the diverse and conflicting elements which
constantly tend to disrupt his kingdom, are we
justified in speaking of a differentiated individual.
The individuality is universally present, but as
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE jdll
a rule it exists mainly in the unconscious, often
finding expression in dreams and fantasies in
some royal or princely figure. It is a principle,
therefore, which has to be created out of the
unconscious by accepting individuation as a de-
liberate and conscious aim.
It may be asked what has individuation got to
do with the treatment of nervous disorders ? This
question springs from the assumption that there is
no fundamental relation between the realities of
the psychic life and the symptomatic conditions of
the body. And yet the lives of religious founders
one and all bear witness to the fact that the
healing of the body is not unconnected with the
inner life.
If differentiation and co-ordination of function
are admitted as the vital principles of organic life,
it is difficult to see how one can regard psychic or
functional disorders as anything else than a state-
ment of the relative suppression of these principles
in the individual in question. The psyche, there-
fore, has to be considered as a totality, and not as
an ill-assorted collection of instincts and faculties.
For, if man is not a mere passive mechanism to
be shaped to the pattern of a chosen formula, he
stands before us as a self-creating subject whose
individual way may be directly opposed to the
analyst’s most cherished theories.
It has often been levelled against Jung that his
is a pedagogic system, that he tries to teach people
how they should live, how they should settle their
problems, instead of merely indicating the un-
conscious state of affairs and leaving them to find
their way out. We are told that the physician
should confine himself to the purely medical aspect
xiv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
of the case, and that to voice any criticism which
might suggest a definite moral or religious stand-
point is to encroach upon other domains for which
he has no qualifications. This point of view is
very common and has a certain justification,
supported as it is by the whole traditional con-
stitution of society. But, in spite of an argument
apparently so overwhelming, the individual psyche
persistently over-rides the social categories, and,
notwithstanding every rational attempt to regard
it in terms of “ mechanisms ” and functions, its
claim to be considered as a whole has never once
abated.
Since this claim appears to have a socially
subversive tendency and occasions very real fear
in a great many minds, it might be well to examine
its character. If we assume — and without this
assumption no system of psycho-therapy has any
reasonable basis — that a neurosis is an act of
adaptation that has failed, we are faced, in an
individual case, with the question: What is the
nature of the reality to which this individual has
failed to adapt ? The materialist would fain have
us believe that the only reality demanding psychic
adaptation is represented by the sheer concrete
facts of the physical environment. But, if concrete
facts were the only reality, there would be no
spiritual problem, and consequently no neurotics.
The minimal adjustment to objective conditions
demanded by social life could present no insuper-
able difficulty to anyone but an imbecile unless
there were another reality of a very different nature
always competing with the concrete world for
prior claim upon our energy.
This other psychic or spiritual reality, which
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
xv
comprises the whole inner life of the subject, is as
constantly demanding new forms and expressions
of its energy as is the world of external objects,
even though it does not make the same com-
pelling demand upon our attention. The fantastic
hallucinations of the delirium tremens patient or
the paranoic are equally strong evidence for the
reality of these inner claims as are the ecstatic-
experiences of the religious mystic; only in the
former case they are seen from the reverse side.
For this reality the evidence is necessarily sub-
jective. The snakes and frogs seen by the patient
in his delirium, however delusional to an objective
valuation, possess an indisputable reality to the man
himself. Clearly, therefore, there are two quite
different kinds of reality, both of which, while
pressing their respective claims upon our capacity
for adaptation, are nevertheless mutually dependent
in the sense that neglect or disregard of either
eventually destroys the validity of both.
Again, thousands of lives are fruitlessly spent
in a neurotic attempt to escape an overpowering
parental influence, just as there are innumerable
lives seeking a release from the unconscious
tyranny of collective authority. The need of the
growing child to differentiate himself as an in-
dividual from the magical parental influence is
essentially the same as the individuating impulse
to distinguish oneself as a “ single, separate person ”
from the collective “en masse”. But the develop-
ing child who seeks to adventure beyond the
magic circle of the family encounters not only the
authority and conservatism of the older generation,
but also the far more dangerous inertia and infantil-
ism of his own psychology.
xvl TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
In either case it is essentially the same conflict
between the individual and the collective elements,
whether within or without, and what could prevail
against the authority without or the inertia within,
but an inner necessity or law whose incontestable
superiority can stand firm against every attack.
The genuine rebel in his resistance against the
law can win our sympathy in spite of ourselves.
Notwithstanding every rational resistance, the
inner superiority enforces our recognition of its
power. The genuine neurotic (as opposed to the
social deserter) is typically a man who cannot
reconcile the claims of traditional forms and values
with those of the obscure, but unbending, law
within. For him, the inner and outer claims are
contradictory and mutually exclusive. In answer
to the persistent demands of the social tax-collector
he can only guarantee the overdue payments to
Caesar when Caesar shall first have recognized the
paramount claims of God.
For such a man to be delivered over once
again to the orthodox representatives of traditional
values, whatever the formula may be, is merely to
hand him over to his creditors. Before he can do
justice to traditional forms or fulfil his social task,
he must first submit himself unconditionally to the
fundamental law of his own being. This is his
stronghold, this his root in an enduring reality,
and with this security he can go out into the
world, not only to settle the old imperial demands,
but also, perchance, to reanimate the forms that
ire with the vision of what is to be.
To the critic then who charges Jung with
pedagogic interference, we would reply : Jung does
aot teach a man how he shall act or think or live,
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE xvil
but he gives him a technique by which he can
comprehend and finally submit to the laws of his
own nature. The basic principles of human de-
velopment are not vested in any faculty — they
have no academic formula, for they embrace every
function of human activity. They are commen-
surate with life. It is not surprising, therefore,
that it is from just those quarters where authority
reigns and where ‘ truth ’ is already congealed into
a dogma, that this particular .criticism usually
springs. It is easier to teach and practise a
formula than to try to interpret the meaning of
life; but a rational formula is doomed from the
outset, because it tends to seduce men to turn
away from the enigma of life by offering them a
formula in its stead : thus it opposes life, and its
inherent destructiveness determines its own fate.
No psychological formula can ever explain life.
At the best, it can only present the living process
in a thinkable form to our reason. As soon as it
claims to have explained a living process, its effect
is destructive, since it interposes an authoritative,
ready-made explanation between the individual
and the real problems life presents, thus apparently
relieving him of the need to seek his own individual
solution.
This is what Jung describes as negative, in
contrast to positive or creative, thinking ; for what
we call character is nothing but the measure of
sincerity with which an individual creates a positive
adaptation to the essential problems of life.
A formula is an artefact, a rigid and arbitrary
frame into which the plastic and changing forms
of life are impressed. The resistance of the un-
conscious to this imposition is perceptible in the
xviii TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
impassioned dogmatism of the man who has
accepted a formula as an explanation of life.
A principle, on the other hand, acquires its
validity not from the authority of the man who
lays it down, but from life itself, whose manifold
processes it correlates and brings into abstract
form. Formulas live and die like their authors —
one might almost say with their authors ; whereas
the validity of an abstract principle is just as
durable as the processes it embraces and com-
prehends. It needs neither authority nor defence.
It bears'within it its own prerogative.
Jung’s analytical interpretations are admittedly
based upon the principles established in the present
work, but practical application of them, i.e. their
translation again into life, rests wholly with the
individual subject.
The individuality is the alpha and omega of
Jung’s system, not, however, as an expression of
personal power as the egoist would like to inter-
pret it, but essentially as a function of the whole.
This in itself sufficiently disposes of the pedagogic
critics, for a system which aims at individual
autonomy cannot justly, be described as peda-
gogic. Naturally there could be no interpretation
at all without a standpoint. In practice, therefore,
the most that we can humanly demand is that the
standpoint of the analyst should constantly be
orientated towards the individual way, or “ greatest
ought ” of the subject. It is, of course, true that,
however genuinely an analyst may strive to realize
this aim, his interpretation will, to a ( large extent,
be subjectively conditioned. This is psychologi-
cally unavoidable, but the very sincerity with
which he strives to interpret the fundamental
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE xix
needs of his patient from the material at his dis-
posal must surely make for individual autonomy.
Whereas the opposite standpoint that would reduce
psychic experience into terms of arbitrary mechan-
isms must inevitably tend to standardize mankind ;
because, in this case, the main criterion of judg-
ment is the relative measure of conformity with
the orthodox formula.
From the point of view of social economy,
there can surely be no two opinions that a
psychological technique whose aim it is to create
individuals is of greater value to society than a
system which aims at conformity. For an indi-
vidual who is at one with himself seeks a creative
collective expression from inner necessity, while
the dragooned neurotic is of as little service to
society as an unwilling conscript.
But how, it may be asked, can a physician
learn to forgo the customary collectivized view of
his fellow-man and train himself to an unprejudiced
view of his patient’s individuality unobscured by
his own unconscious projections ?
It will, I think, be clear, that before a physician
can fully recognize and respect the individuality of
his patient, he must first have given allegiance to
this principle in himself. This does not mean to
say that only a differentiated individual is fitted to
practise analysis — such a condition would disqualify
every candidate — but it does demand that the
analyst shall himself have been analysed and shall
have made a sincere attempt to deal with his own
life problems before undertaking to deal with those
of his patients.
The aims of the individuality can never be frilly
apprehended by exclusive reference to the biological
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
or instinctive life of the subject ; in fact, just as
little can they be explained in terms of instinct as
a work-of-art in terms of energy. One might
attempt to formulate the chief aim of the indivi-
duality as the effort to create out of oneself the
most significant product of which one is capable.
On the biological plane this is clearly the child
but on the psychic level this must be interpreted
more broadly as something that bears for the
individual, in the fullest sense of the term, a
significance at least analogous to that of the
child. For the greatest individual value is
always pregnant with value for mankind.
Hence the budding personality with its potential-
ities for good or ill is frequently represented in
dreams in the form of a child.
The whole symbolism of rebirth is quite un-
intelligible from a purely biological standpoint;
hence a system that is blinded by its preoccupa-
tion with purely instinctive interpretations presents
a definite obstruction to the whole transforming
or spiritualizing tendency of the libido. The
obvious prospective significance of the rebirth
symbolism in dreams is, to my mind, so apparent
that one is tempted to accuse the reductive school
of wilful blindness. But this would, of course,
be quite absurd, and one has to remind oneself
that the dream, like the lily of the field, is a
natural product unassisted by human intention,
and that it is quite as rational to regard the lily
as a fortunate accidental grouping of basic organic
elements as to conceive it as a symbol of purity.
The standpoint, therefore, eventually decides the
interpretation, as it also decides the manner in
which the interpretation is employed.
. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xtl
I have now revealed the very practical motive
which prompted me to bring this whole question
of the underlying opposition of standpoint into the
foreground of discussion. This attempt, although
foredoomed to excite controversy, will, I hope, in
spite of the obvious inadequacy of such a brief out-
line, help to clarify the situation in a way that a more
cautious and non-committal statement would fail
to do.
The great value of the present work lies in the
fact that it is a mature and conscious survey of the
psychological field, viewed by a mind of unique
range and development whose astonishing wealth of
psychological experience illumines the whole work.
The range of Jung’s thought has developed with his
experience. The Psychology of the Unconscious was
the shaft of the tree — this work is its ample spread.
For practical psychologists it must assuredly
be regarded as the foundation of the science, for
in no other work do we find basic psychological
principles whose validity is commensurate with
the undeniable facts of man’s historic development
and the realities of individual experience.
The actual translation of the work was a
task of such difficulty that often I despaired of
giving the book an adequate rendering into
English. Fortunately I had exceptional oppor-
tunities of assistance from the author himself,
for whose unstinted patience and generosity in
listening to my translation week by week and
offering invaluable suggestions I cannot be too
grateful.
For most valued assistance in the various pre-
paratory stages of the work I wish to tender my
warmest acknowledgments to my wife, to Mrs
xxil TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Lilian A. Clare, to Mr John M. Thorbum of
Cardiff University, and finally, to Mr W. Swan
Stallybrass (of Messrs Kegan Paul & Co. Ltd.,
my publishers) for whose friendly offices and inde-
fatigable care in the matter of punctuation and
typography throughout the book I offer my very
cordial appreciation.
With regard to the use of italics in this book
I wish to explain that, with the exception of titles
of books, italics have been reserved to denote stress.
Had all the numerous foreign words occurring in
the text been printed in italic type, in accordance
with English typographical convention, the special
value of this type, from the point of view of the
author’s meaning, would have been lost. Our only
other alternative was to use quotation-marks, but
in, many places foreign words occur so frequently
that this would have served merely to blur the
page and confuse the eye. There are a few ex-
ceptions to the above rule, the reasons for which
will be obvious. Double quotation-marks are used
for actual quotations ; single marks for indicating
philosophical terms used in special senses, famous
deparler , etc.
For the fact that, with the exception of the
quotations from Kant, I have nowhere availed
myself of existing English translations either of
the Oriental or the European authors quoted in
the text, I must plead my residence in Zurich,
where the various works were inaccessible.
H. G. Baynes.
24 Campden Hnx Square,
London, W.8.
FOREWORD
This book is the fruit ot nearly twenty years* work in
the domain of practical psychology. It is a gradual
intellectual structure, equally compounded of numberless
impressions and experiences in the practice of psychiatry
and nervous maladies, and of intercourse with men of
all social levels ; it is a product, therefore, of my personal
dealings with friend and with foe ; and finally it has a
further source in the criticism of my own psychological
particularity.
I do not propose to burden the reader with casuistry ;
it is, however, incumbent upon me to link up the ideas,
derived from experience, both historically and termino-
logically with already existing knowledge.
I have done this not so much from a sense of historical
justice as from a desire to bring the experiences of the
medical specialist out of narrow professional limits into
more general relations; relations which will enable the
educated lay mind to make use of the experiences of
a specialized terrain. I would never have ventured to
attempt this expansion, which might well be misunder-
stood as an encroachment upon other spheres, were I
not convinced that the psychological points of view pre-
sented in this book are of wide significance and appli-
cation, and are therefore better treated in a general
connection than left in the form of a specialized scientific
hypothesis.
With this aim in view I have confined myself to a
discussion of the ideas ot a few workers in the field of
the problem under review, and have omitted to mention
7
8
FOREWORD
all that has already been said concerning our problem
in general. Quite apart from the fact that to catalogue
such a collection of correlated material and views with
even bare adequacy would far exceed my powers, the
inventory, when completed, could make no sort of funda-
mental contribution to the discussion and development
of the problem. Without regret, therefore, I have omitted
much that I have collected in the course of years, con-
fining myself as far as possible to the main questions.
A most valuable document, that afforded me great help,
has also been sacrificed in this renunciation. This is a
bulky correspondence which I exchanged with my friend,
Dr H. Schmid of Basle, concerning the question of types.
I owe a great deal to this interchange of ideas, and much
of it, though of course in an altered and greatly revised
form, has gone into my book. This correspondence
belongs essentially to the stage of preparation, and its
inclusion would create more confusion than clarity. But
I owe it to the labours of my friend to express my thanks
to him here.
Kiisnachty Zurich
Spring, 192a
C G. JUNG.
INTRODUCTION
** Plato and Aristotle I These are not merely two systems ; they
are also types of two distinct human natures, which from immemorial
time, under every sort of cloak, stand more or less inimically opposed.
But pre-eminently the whole medieval period was riven by this con-
flict, persisting even to the present day ; moreover, this battle is the
most essential content of the history of the Christian Church. Though
under different names, always and essentially it is of Plato and Aris-
totle that we speak. Enthusiastic, mystical, Platonic natures reveal
Christian ideas and their corresponding symbols from the bottomless
depths of their souls. Practical, ordering, Aristotelian natures build
up from these ideas and symbols a solid system, a dogma and a cult.
The Church eventually embraces both natures — one of them sheltering
among the clergy, while the other finds refuge in monasticism; yet
both incessantly at feud/' — H. Heine, Deutschland , i.
In my practical medical work with nervous patients I
have long been struck by the fact that among the many
individual differences in human psychology there exist
also typical distinctions : two types especially became clear
to me which I have termed the Introversion and the
Extraversion Types .
When we reflect upon human history, we see how the
destinies of one individual are conditioned more by the
objects of his interest, while in another they are conditioned
more by his own inner self, by his subject Since, there-
fore, we all swerve rather more towards one side than the
other, we are naturally disposed to understand everything
in the sense of our own type.
I mention this circumstance at this point to prevent
possible subsequent misunderstandings. As may well be
understood, this basic condition considerably aggravates
the difficulty of a general description of the types. I
must presume a considerable benevolence on the part of
0
xo
INTRODUCTION
the reader if I may hope to be rightly understood. It
would be relatively simple if every reader himself knew to
which category he belonged. But it is often a difficult
matter to discover to which type an individual belongs,
especially when oneself is in question. Judgment in
relation to one’s own personality is indeed always extra-
ordinarily clouded. This subjective clouding of judgment
is, therefore, a frequent if not constant factor, for in every
pronounced type there exists a special tendency towards
compensation for the onesidedness of his type , a tendency
which is biologically expedient since it is a constant
effort to maintain psychic equilibrium. Through compen-
sation there arise secondary characters, or types, which
present a picture that is extraordinarily hard to decipher,
so difficult, indeed, that one is even inclined to deny the
existence of types in general and to believe only in
individual differences.
I must emphasize this difficulty in order to justify a
certain peculiarity in my later presentation. For it might
seem as though a simpler way would be to describe two
concrete cases and to lay their dissections one beside the
other. But every individual possesses both mechanisms —
extra version as well as introversion, and only the relative
predominance of the one or the other determines the type.
Hence, in order to bring out the necessary relief in the
picture, one would have to re-touch it rather vigorously ;
which would certainly amount to a more or less pious
fraud. Moreover, the psychological reaction of a human
being is such a complicated matter, that my descriptive
ability would indeed hardly suffice to give an absolutely
correct picture of it.
From sheer necessity, therefore, I must confine myself
to a presentation of principles which I have abstracted
from an abundance of observed facts. In this there is no
question of deductio a priori, as it might well appear : it
INTRODUCTION
11
is rather a deductive presentation of empirically gained
understanding. It is my hope that this insight may
prove a clarifying contribution to a dilemma which, not
in analytical psychology alone but also in other provinces
of science, and especially in the personal relations of
human beings one to another, has led and still continues
to lead to misunderstanding and division. For it explains
how the existence of two distinct types is actually a fact
that has long been known: a fact that in one form or
another has dawned upon the observer of human nature
or shed light upon the brooding reflection of the thinker ;
presenting itself, for example, to Goethe’s intuition as the
embracing principle of systole and diastole . The names
and forms in which the mechanism of introversion and
extraversion has been conceived are extremely diverse,
and are, as a rule, adapted only to the standpoint of the
individual observer. Notwithstanding the diversity of
the formulations, the common basis or fundamental idea
shines constantly through; namely, in the one case an
outward movement of interest toward the object, and in
the other a movement of interest away from the object,
towards the subject and his own psychological processes.
In the first case the object works like a magnet upon the
tendencies of the subject; it is, therefore, an attraction
that to a large extent determines the subject. It even
alienates him from himself : his qualities may become so
transformed, in the sense of assimilation to the object,
that one could imagine the object to possess an extreme
and even decisive significance for the subject. It might
almost seem as though it were an absolute determination,
a special purpose of life or fate that he should abandon
himself wholly to the object.
But, in. the latter case, the subject is and remains the
centre of every interest. It looks, one might say, as
though all the life-energy were ultimately seeking the
INTRODUCTION
ia
subject, thus offering a constant hindrance to any over-
powering influence on the part of the object. It is as
though energy were flowing away from the object, as if
the subject were a magnet which would draw the object
to itself.
It is not easy to characterize this contrasting relation-
ship to the object in a way that is lucid and intelligible ;
there is, in fact, a great danger of reaching quite para-
doxical formulations which would create more confusion
than clarity. Quite generally, one could describe the
introverted standpoint as one that under all circumstances
sets the self and the subjective psychological process
above the object and the objective process, or at any rate
holds its ground against the object. This attitude, there-
fore, gives the subject a higher value than the object
As a result, the object always possesses a lower value ;
it has secondary importance; occasionally it even re-
presents merely an outward objective token of a subjective
content, the embodiment of an idea in other words, in
which, however, the idea is the essential factor; or it is
the object of a feeling, where, however, the feeling ex-
perience is the chief thing, and not the object in its own
individuality. The extraverted standpoint, on the con-
trary, sets the subject below the object, whereby the object
receives the predominant value. The subject always has
secondary importance; the subjective process appears at
times merely as a disturbing or superfluous accessory to
objective events. It is plain that the psychology resulting
from these antagonistic standpoints must be distinguished
as two totally different orientations. The one sees every-
thing from the angle of his conception, the other from the
view-point of the objective occurrence.
These opposite attitudes are merely opposite mechan-
isms — a diastolic going out and seizing of the object,
and a systolic concentration and release of energy from
INTRODUCTION
13
the object seized. Every human being possesses both
mechanisms as an expression of his natural life-rhythm—
that rhythm which Goethe, surely not by chance, charac-
terized with the physiological concepts of cardiac activity.
A rhythmical alternation of both forms of psychic activity
may correspond with the normal course of life. But the
complicated external conditions under which we live, as
well as the presumably even more complex conditions
of our individual psychic disposition, seldom permit a
completely undisturbed flow of our psychic activity.
Outer circumstances and inner disposition frequently
favour the one mechanism, and restrict or hinder the
other ; whereby a predominance of one mechanism natur-
ally arises. If this condition becomes in any way chronic
a type is produced, namely an habitual attitude, in which
the one mechanism permanently dominates ; not, of
course, that the other can ever be completely suppressed,
inasmuch as it also is an integral factor in psychic activity.
Hence, there can never occur a pure type in the sense
that he is entirely possessed of the one mechanism with
a complete atrophy of the other. A typical attitude
always signifies the merely relative predominance of one
mechanism.
With the substantiation of introversion and extraver-
sion an opportunity at once offered itself for the differentia-
tion of two extensive groups of psychological individuals*
But this grouping is of such a - superficial and inclusive
nature that it permits no more than a rather general dis-
crimination. A more exact investigation of those indi-
vidual psychologies which fall into either group at once
yields great differences between individuals who none
the less belong to the same group. If, therefore, we wish
to determine wherein lie the differences of individuals
belonging to a definite group, we must make a further
step. My experience has taught me that individuals
*4
INTRODUCTION
can quite generally be differentiated, not only by the
universal difference of extra and introversion, but also
according to individual basic psychological functions.
For in the same measure as outer circumstances and inner
disposition respectively promote a predominance of extra-
version or introversion, they also favour the predominance
of one definite basic function in the individual.
As basic functions, i.e. functions which are both
genuinely as well as essentially differentiated from other
functions, there exist thinkings feeling , sensation, , and in-
tuition. If one of these functions habitually prevails, a
corresponding type results. I therefore discriminate
thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive types. Every-
one of these types can moreover be introverted or extr averted
according to his relation to the object in the way described
above.
In two former communications 1 concerning psycho-
logical types, I did not carry out the distinction outlined
above, but identified the thinking type with the introvert
and the feeling type with the extravert. A deeper elabora-
tion of the problem proved this combination to be un-
tenable. To avoid misunderstandings I would, therefore,
ask the reader to bear in mind the distinction here de-
veloped. In order to ensure the clarity which is essential
in such complicated things, I have devoted the last
chapter of this book to the definitions of my psychological
conceptions.
1 Jung, Contribution h Vttude des Types psychologiques (Arch, de
Psychologic , I, xiii, p. 289) ; Psychological Types (Collected Papers on
Analytical Psychology , p. 287. London: Baiiliire 1916) Psychologic
der unbewussten Prozesse, 2 te Aufl. p. 65 (Zurich 19x8).
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF TYPES IN THE HISTORY OF
CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL THOUGHT
1. Psychology in the Classical Age : The Gnostics,
Tertullian, and Origen
So long as the historical world has existed there has
always been psychology; objective psychology, however,
is of only recent growth. We might affirm of the science
of former times that the lack of objective psychology
corresponds with a proportionate yield of the subjective
element Hence the works of the ancients are full of
psychology, but only little of it can be described as
objective psychology. This may be conditioned in no
small measure by the peculiarity of human relationship in
classic and in medieval times. The ancients had, if one
may so express it, an almost exclusively biological
appreciation of their fellow-men ; this is everywhere
apparent in the habits of life and legal conditions of
antiquity. In so far as a judgment of value found any
general expression, the medieval world had a metaphysical
valuation of its fellow-men ; this had its source in the idea
of the imperishable value of the human soul. This meta-
physical valuation, which may be regarded as a compensa-
tion to the standpoint of antiquity, is just as unfavourable
as the biological valuation, so far as that personal appraise-
ment is concerned, which can alone be the groundwork
of an objective psychology. There are indeed not a few
who hold that a psychology can be written ex cathedra.
15
16 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
Nowadays, however, most of us are convinced that an
objective psychology must above all be grounded upon
observation and experience. This foundation would be
ideal, if only it were possible. But the ideal and the
purpose of science do not consist in giving the most exact
possible description of facts — science cannot yet compete
with kinematographic and phonographic records — it can
fulfil its aim and purpose only in the establishment of law,
which is merely an abbreviated expression for manifold
and yet correlated processes. This purpose transcends
the purely experimental by means of the concept \ which,
in spite of general and proved validity, will always be a
product of the subjective psychological constellation of
the investigator. In the making of scientific theory and
concept much that is personal and incidental is involved.
There is also a psychological personal equation, not
merely a psycho-physical. We can see colours, but not
wave-lengths. This well-known fact must nowhere be
more seriously held in view than in psychology. The
operation of the personal equation has already begun in
the act of observation. One sees what one can best see
from oneself Thus, first and foremost, one sees the mote
in one’s brother’s eye. No doubt the mote is there, but
the beam sits in one’s own, and — may somewhat hinder
the act of seeing. I misdoubt the principle of ‘pure
observation ’ in so-called objective psychology, unless one
confines oneself to the eye -pieces of the chronoscope,
or to the ergograph and such-like “psychological” ap-
paratus. With such methods one also ensures oneself
against too great a yield of experimental psychological
facts.
But the personal psychological equation becomes even
more important in the presentation or the communication
of observations, to say nothing of the interpretation and
abstraction of the experimental material! Nowhere, as
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 17
in psychology, is the basic requirement so indispensable
that the observer and investigator should be adequate to
his object, in the sense that he should be able to see not
the subject only but also the object The demand that he
should see only objectively is quite out of the question, for
it is impossible. We may well be satisfied if we do not
see too subjectively. That the subjective observation and
interpretation agrees with the objective facts of the psycho-
logical object is evidence for the interpretation only in so
far as the latter makes no pretence to be universal, but
intends to be valid only for that field of the object that is
under consideration. To this extent it is just the beam
in one’s own eye that enables one to detect the mote in
the brother’s eye. The beam in one’s own eye, in this
case, does not prove (as already said) that the brother has
no mote in his. But the impairment of vision might
easily give rise to a general theory that all motes are
beams.
The recognition and taking to heart of the subjective
limitation of knowledge in general, and of psychological
knowledge in particular, is a basic condition for the scientific
.and accurate estimation of a psyche differing from that
of the observing subject This condition is fulfilled only
when the observer is adequately informed concerning the
compass and nature of his own personality. He can,
however, be sufficiently informed only when he has in great
measure freed himself from the compromising influence of
collective opinion and feeling, and has thereby reached a
dear conception of his own individuality.
The further we go back into history the more we see
personality disappearing beneath the wrappings of collec-
tivity. And, if we go right down to primitive psychology,
we find absolutely no trace of the idea of the individual.
In place of individuality we find only collective relation-
ship, or “participation mystique” (L£vy - Bruhl). But
B
18 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
the collective attitude prevents the understanding and
estimation of a psychology which differs from that of
the subject, because the mind that is collectively orientated
is quite incapable of thinking and feeling in any other
way than by projection. What we understand by the
concept ‘individual* is a relatively recent acquisition in
the history of the human mind and human culture. It
is no wonder, therefore, that the earlier all-powerful
collective attitude almost entirely prevented an objective
psychological estimation of individual differences, and for-
bade any general scientific objectification of individual
psychological processes. It was owing to this very lack
of psychological thinking that knowledge became 4 psycho-
logized *, i.e . crowded with projected psychology. Striking
instances of this are to be seen in the first attempts at
a philosophical explanation of the universe. The develop-
ment of individuality, with the resulting psychological
differentiation of man, goes hand in hand with a de-
psychologizing of objective science.
These reflections may explain why the springs of
objective psychology have such a niggardly flow in the
material handed down to us from antiquity. The descrip%
tion of the four temperaments gathered from antiquity
is hardly a psychological typification, since the tempera-
ments are scarcely more than psycho - physiological
complexions. But this lack of information does not
mean that we possess no trace in classical literature of
the reality of the psychological antitheses in question.
Thus Gnostic philosophy established three types,
corresponding perhaps with the three basic psychological
functions : thinking, feeling, and sensation. The Pneumatici
might correspond with thinking, the Psychici with feeling
and the Hylici with sensation. The inferior estimation
of the Psychici accorded with the spirit of the Gnosis,
which in contrast with Christianity insisted upon the
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
19
value of knowledge. But the Christian principle of love
and faith did not favour knowledge. The Pneumaticist
would accordingly suffer a decline in value within the
Christian sphere, in so far as he distinguished him-
self merely by the possession of the Gnosis, i.e. know-
ledge.
Differences in type should also be remembered when
we are considering the long and somewhat dangerous
fight which from its earliest beginnings the Church con-
ducted against the Gnosticism. In the practical tendency
that undoubtedly prevailed in early Christianity, the
intellectual, when, in obedience to his fighting instinct
he did not lose himself in apologetic polemics, scarcely
came into his own. The ‘regula fidei’ was too narrow
and permitted no independent movement Moreover, it
was poor in positive intellectual content. It contained
a few ideas, which, although of enormous practical value,
were a definite obstacle to thought The intellectual was
much more hardly hit by the * sacrificium intellectus ’ than
the man of feeling. Hence it # is easy to understand that
the vastly superior intellectual content of the Gnosis, which
in the light of our present intellectual development has
not only not lost but has indeed considerably gained in
value, must have made the greatest possible appeal to the
intellectual within the Church. For him it was in very
sooth the enticement of the world. Docetism, in particular,
caused grave trouble to the Church, with its contention
that Christ possessed only an apparent body and that his
whole earthly existence and passion had been merely a
semblance. In this contention the purely intellectual was
given too prominent a part at the expense of human
feeling. Perhaps the battle with the Gnosis is most clearly
presented to us in two figures who were extremely
influential, not only as Fathers of the Church but also as
personalities. These are Tertullian and Origen, who lived
20 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
about the end of the second century. Schultz says of
them:
“ One organism is able to take in nourishment well - nigh
omnivorously and to assimilate it to its own nature ; another with
equal persistence rejects it again with every appearance of pas-
sionate refusal. Thus essentially opposed, Origen identified
himself with one side, Tertullian with the other. Their reaction
to the Gnosis is not only characteristic of the two personalities
and their philosophy of life ; it is also fundamentally significant
of the position of the Gnosis in the mental life and religious
tendencies of that time /' — ( Dokumente der Gnosis, Jena 1910.)
Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about
160 A.D. He was a pagan, and yielded himself to the
lascivious life of his city until about his thirty-fifth year,
when he became a Christian, He was the author of
numerous writings, wherein his character, which is our
especial interest, unmistakably shows itself. Clear and
distinct are his unexampled, noble-hearted zeal, his fire,
his passionate temperament, and the profound inwardness
of his religious understanding. He is fanatical, ingeniously
one-sided for the sake of an accepted truth, impatient, an
incomparable fighting spirit, a merciless opponent, who
sees victory only in the total annihilation of his adversary,
and his speech is like a flashing steel wielded with inhuman
mastery. He is the creator of the Church Latin which
lasted for more than a thousand years. He it was who
coined the terminology of the Early Church. “ Had he
seized upon a point of view, then must he follow it through
to its every conclusion as though lashed by legions from
hell, even when right had long since ceased to be on his
side and all reasonable order lay mutilated before him.”
The passion of his thinking was so inexorable that again
and again he alienated himself from the very thing for
which he would have given his heart’s blood. Accordingly
his ethical code is bitter in its severity. Martyrdom he
commanded to be sought and not shunned ; he permitted
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 21
no second marriage, and required the permanent veiling of
persons of the female sex. The Gnosis, which in reality
is a passion for thought and cognition, he attacked with
unrelenting fanaticism, including both philosophy and
science, which are so closely linked up with it. To him
is ascribed the sublime confession : Credo quia absurdum
est (I believe because it is against reason). This, however,
does not altogether accord with historical fact ; he merely
said (De Came Christi \ 5): “Et mortuus est dei filius,
prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est. Et sepultus
resurrexit ; cerium est quia impossibile est . 19 (“ And the Son
of God died ; this is therefore credible, just because it is
absurd. And He rose again from the tomb ; this is certain,
because it is impossible”.) By virtue of the acuteness of his
mind he saw through the poverty of philosophic and of
Gnostic learning, and contemptuously rejected it. He
invoked against it the testimony of his own inner world,
his own inner realities, which were one with his faith. In
the shaping and development of these realities he became
the creator of those abstract conceptions which still under-
lie the Catholic system of to-day. The irrational inner
reality had for him an essentially dynamic nature ; it was
his principle, his consolidated position in face of the world
and the collectively valid or rational science and philosophy.
I translate his o.wn words :
“ I summon a new witness, or rather a witness more known
than any written monument, more debated than any system of
life, more published abroad than any promulgation, greater than
the whole of man, yea that which constitutes the whole man.
Approach then, O my soul, should’ st thou be something Divine
and eternal, as many philosophers believe — the less wilt thou
lie — or not wholly Divine, because mortal, as forsooth Epicurus
alone contends — then so much the less can'st thou lie — whether
thou comest from heaven or art bom of earth, whether com-
pounded of numbers or atoms, whether thou hast thy beginning
with the body or art later joined thereto ; what matter indeed
whence thou springest or how thou makest man what he is,
namely a reasonable being, capable of perception and knowledge.
22 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
But I call thee not, O soul, as proclaiming wisdom, trained m
the schools, conversant with libraries, fed and nourished in the
academies and pillared halls of Attica. No, I would speak with
thee, O soul, as wondrous simple and uneducated, awkward and
inexperienced, such as thou art for those who have nothing else
but thee, even just as thou comest from the alleys, from the
street-comers and from the workshops. It is just thy ignorance
I need.**
The self-mutilation achieved by Tertullian in the sacri-
ficium intellectus led him to the unreserved recognition of
the irrational inner reality, the real ground of his faith.
That necessity of the religious process which he sensed
in himself he seized in the incomparable formula “ anima
naturaliter Christiana ” (“ the soul is naturally Christian ” ).
With the sacrificium intellectus philosophy and science,
hence the Gnosis also, had no more meaning for him.
In the further course of his life the qualities I have
depicted stood out in bolder relief. While the Church
was driven to compromise more and more with the masses,
he revolted against it and became a follower of that
Phrygian prophet Montanus, an ecstatic, who represented
the principle of absolute denial of the world and complete
spiritualization. In violent pamphlets he now began to
assail the policy of Pope Calixtus I, and thus, together
with Montanism, fell more or less extra ecclesiam. Accord-
ing to a statement of St Augustine he must, later even have
rejected Montanism and founded a sect of his own.
Tertullian is a classical representative of the introverted
thinking type. His very considerable and keenly developed
intellect is flanked by unmistakable sensuality. That
psychological process of development which we term the
Christian led him to the sacrifice, the amputation, of the most
valuable function, a mythical idea which is also contained
in the great and exemplary symbol of the sacrifice of the
Son of God. His most valuable organ was the intellect,
including that clear discernment of which it was the
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY «3
instrument. Through the sacrificium intellectus, the way
of purely intellectual development was forbidden him ; it
forced him to recognize the irrational dynamis of his soul as
the foundation of his being. The intellectuality of the
Gnosis, its specifically rational coinage of the dynamic
phenomena of the soul, must necessarily have been odious
to him, for that was just the way he had to forsake, in
order to recognize the principle of feeling.
In Origen we may recognize the absolute opposite of
Tertullian. Origen was born in Alexandria about 185.
His father was a Christian martyr. He himself grew up
in that quite unique mental atmosphere wherein the ideas
of East and West mingled. With an intense yearning for
knowledge he eagerly absorbed all that was worth know-
ing, and accepted everything, whether Christian, Jewish,
Grecian, or Egyptian, which at that time the teeming
intellectual world of Alexandria offered him. He dis-
tinguished himself as a teacher in a school of catechists.
The pagan philosopher Porphyrius, a pupil of Plotinus,
said of him : “ His outer life was that of a Christian and
against the Law; but in his view of things phenomenal
and divine he was a Hellenist, and substituted the con-
ception of the Greeks for the foreign myths.”
Already before A.D. 21 1 his self-castration had taken
place ; his inner motives for this may indeed be guessed,
but historically they are not known to us. Personally he
was of great influence, and had a winning speech. He
was constantly surrounded by pupils and a whole host of
stenographers who gathered up the precious words that
fell from the revered master’s lips. As an author he was
extraordinarily fertile and he developed an amazing
academic activity. In Antioch he even delivered lectures
on theology to the Emperor’s mother Mammaea. In
Caesarea he was the head of a school. His teaching
activities were considerably interrupted by his extensive
24
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
journeyings. He possessed extraordinary scholarship
and had an astounding capacity for the investigation o 1
things in general. He hunted up old Bible manuscripts
and earned special merit for his textual criticism. “He
was a great scholar, indeed the only true scholar the
ancient Church possessed”, says Harnack. In complete
contrast to Tertullian, Origen did not bar the door against
the influence of Gnosticism ; in fact he even transferred it,
in attenuated form, into the bosom of the Church; such
at least was his aim. Indeed, judging by his thought and
fundamental views, he was himself almost a Christian
Gnostic. His position in regard to faith and knowledge is
portrayed by Harnack in the following psychologically
significant words :
“ The Bible, in like wise, is needful to both : the believers
receive from it the realities and commandments which they need,
while the scholars decipher thoughts therein and gather from it
that power which guideth them to the contemplation and love of
God — whereby all material things, through spiritual interpreta-
tion (allegorical exegesis, hermeneutics), seem to be re-cast
into a cosmos of ideas, until all is at last surmounted in the
* ascent ’ and left behind as stepping stones, while only this
remaineth : the blessed abiding relationship of the God-created
creature-soul to God (amor et visio).”
His theology as distinguished from Tertullian's was
essentially philosophical ; it was thoroughly pressed, so
to speak, into the frame of a neo- Platonic philosophy.
In Origen the two spheres of Grecian philosophy and the
Gnosis on the one hand, and the world of Christian ideas
on the other, peacefully and harmoniously intermingle.
But this daring, intelligent tolerance and sense of justice
also led Origen to the fate of condemnation by the Church.
The final condemnation, to be sure, only took place
posthumously, when Origen as an old man had been
tortured in the persecution of the Christians by Decius,
and had died not long after from the effects of the torture.
In 399 Pope Anastasias I pronounced the condemnation,
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
«5
and in 543 his heresy was anathematized by a synod
convoked by Justinian, which judgment was upheld by
later Councils.
Origen is a classical example of the extraverted type.
His basic orientation is towards the object; this shows
itself in his conscientious consideration of objective facts
and their conditions ; it is also revealed in the formulation
of that supreme principle : amor et visio Dei. The
Christian process of development encountered in Origen
a type whose bed-rock foundation is the relation to the
object ; a type that has ever symbolically expressed itself
in sexuality ; which also accounts for the fact that there
even exist to-day certain theories which reduce every
essential function of the soul down to sexuality. Castra-
tion is therefore the adequate expression of the sacrifice
of the most valuable function. It is entirely characteristic
that Tertullian should, perform the sacrificium intellectus,
whereas Origen is led to the sacrificium phalli, since the
Christian process demands a complete abolition of the
sensual hold upon the object, in other words : it demands
the sacrifice of the hitherto most valued function, the
dearest possession, the strongest instinct Considered
biologically, the sacrifice is brought into the service of
domestication, but psychologically it opens a door for new
possibilities of development to be inaugurated through the
liberation from old ties.
Tertullian sacrificed the intellect, because it was that
which most strongly bound him to worldliness. He
battled with the Gnosis because for him it represented
the side-track into the intellectual, which at the same
time involves also sensuality. Parallel with this fact we
find that in reality Gnosticism was also divided into two
schools: one school striving after a spirituality that
exceeded all bounds, the other losing itself in an ethical
anarchism, an absolute libertinism that shrank from no
B*
26 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
lechery however atrocious and perverse. One must
definitely distinguish between the Encratites (continent)
and the Antitactes or Antinomians (opposed to order and
law), who in obedience to certain doctrines sinned on
principle and purposefully gave themselves to unbridled
debauchery. To the latter school belong the Nicolaitans,
the Archontici, etc., and the aptly named Borborites.
How closely the apparent antitheses lay side by side is
shewn by the example of the Archontici, for this same
sect divided into an Encratitic and an Antinomian school,
both of which remained logical and consistent. If anyone
wants to know what are the ethical results of a bold
intellectualism carried out on a large scale, let him study
the history of Gnostic morals. He will thoroughly under-
stand the sacrificium intellectus. These people were also
practically consistent and lived what they had conceived
even to absurd lengths. But Origen, in the mutilation of
himself, sacrificed the sensual hold upon the world. For
him, evidently, the intellect was not so much a specific
danger as feeling and sensation with their enchainment to
the object. Through castration he freed himself from the
sensuality that was coupled with Gnosticism; he could
then yield himself unafraid to the riches of Gnostic
thought, while Tertullian through his sacrifice of intellect
turned away from the Gnosis, but thereby reached a depth
of religious feeling that we miss in Origen. “In one way
he was superior to Origen ”, says Schulte, “ because in his
deepest soul he lived every one of his words ; it was not
reason that carried him away, like the other, but the heart.
But in another respect he stands far behind him, inasmuch
as he, the most passionate of all thinkers , was on the verge
of rejecting knowledge altogether, for his battle against
the Gnosis was tantamount to a complete denial of human
thought."
We see here how, in the Christian process, the original
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY zy
type has actually become reversed : Tertullian, the acute
thinker, becomes the man of feeling, while Origen becomes
the scholar and loses himself in the intellect Logically,
of course, it is quite easy to reverse the state of affairs
and to say that Tertullian had always been the man of
feeling and Origen the intellectual. Disregarding the
fact that the difference of type is not done away with
by this procedure, but exists as before, the reversed point
of view has still to be explained ; how comes it that
Tertullian saw his most dangerous enemy in the intellect,
while Origen in sexuality? One could say they were
both deceived, and one could advance the fatal result of
both lives by way of argument. One must assume, if
that were the case, that both had sacrificed the less im-
portant thing, and thus to a certain extent both had
made a bargain with fate. That is also a view which
contains a principle of recognizable validity. Are there
not just such sly-boots among the primitives who
approach their fetish with a black hen under the arm.
saying: “See, here is thy sacrifice, a beautiful black
pig.” I am, however, of opinion that the depreciatory
method of explanation, notwithstanding the unmistakable
relief which the ordinary human being feels in dragging
down something great, is not under all circumstances the
correct one, even though it may appear to be very * bio-
logical/ But from what we can personally know of these
two great ones in the realm of the mind, we must say
that their whole nature and quality had such sincerity
that their Christian conversion was neither a fraudulent
enterprise nor mere deceit, but had both reality and
truthfulness*
We shall not lose ourselves upon a by-path if we take
this opportunity of trying to grasp what is the psychological
meaning of this breaking of the natural instinctive course
(which is what the Christian process of sacrifice seems to
28
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
be). From what has been said above it follows that
conversion signifies also a transition to another attitude.
It is further clear whence the impelling motive towards
conversion arises, and how far Tertullian was right in
conceiving the soul as “ naturaliter Christiana.” The
natural, instinctive course, like everything in nature,
follows the principle of least resistance. One man is
rather more gifted here, another there ; or, again, adapta-
tion to the early environment of childhood may demand
either relatively more restraint and reflection or relatively
more sympathy and participation, according to the nature
of the parents and other circumstances. Thereby a certain
preferential attitude is automatically moulded, which results
in different types. In so far then as every man, as a
relatively stable being, possesses all the basic psychological
functions, it would be a psychological necessity with a view
to perfect adaptation that he should also employ them in
equal measure. For there must be a reason why there
are different ways of psychological adaptation : evidently
one alone is not sufficient, since the object seems to be
only partially comprehended when, for example, it is
either merely thought or merely felt. Through a one-
sided (typical) attitude there remains a deficit in the
resulting psychological adaptation, which accumulates
during the course of life ; from this deficiency a derange-
ment of adaptation develops, which forces the subject
towards a compensation. But the compensation can be
obtained only by means of amputation (sacrifice) of the
hitherto one-sided attitude. Thereby a temporary heaping
up of energy results and an overflow into channels hitherto
not consciously used though already existing unconsciously.
The adaptation deficit, which is the causa efficiens of the
process of conversion, becomes subjectively perceived as
a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Such an atmosphere
prevailed at the turning-point of our era. A quite
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 29
astonishing need of redemption came over mankind, and
brought about that unheard-of efflorescence of every sort
of possible and impossible cult in ancient Rome. More-
over, representatives of the ‘living the full life/ theory
were not wanting, who, albeit innocent of ‘biology/
operated with similar arguments founded on the science
of that day. They, too, could never be done with specula-
tions as to why it is that mankind is in such a poor way ;
only the causalism of that day, as compared with the
science of ours, was somewhat less restricted ; their
‘harking back* reached far beyond childhood to cos-
mogony, and many systems were devised that pointed to
all sorts of events in remote antiquity as being the source
of insufferable consequences for mankind.
The sacrifice that Tertullian and Origen carried out
is drastic — too drastic for our taste — but it corresponded
with the spirit of that time, which was thoroughly concret-
istic. In harmony with this spirit the Gnosis simply took
its visions as real, or at least as bearing directly upon
reality, hence for Tertullian there was an objective
validity in the realities of his feeling. Gnosticism pro-
jected the subjective inner perception of the attitude-
changing process into the form of a cosmogonic system,
and believed in the reality of its psychological figures.
In my book Psychology of the Unconscious 1 I left the
whole question open as to the origin of the libido course
peculiar to the Christian process. I spoke of a splitting
of the -libido into halves, each directed against the other.
The explanation for this is to be found in the one-sided-
ness of the psychological attitude growing so extreme that
the need for compensation became urgent on the side of
the unconscious. It is precisely the Gnostic movement
in the early Christian centuries which most clearly demon-
ic Translated by Dr B. M. Hinkle (London : Kegan taul & Co
19x9 ; new edn. 1921).
28
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
be). From what has been said above it follows that
conversion signifies also a transition to another attitude.
It is further clear whence the impelling motive towards
conversion arises, and how far Tertullian was right in
conceiving the soul as <c naturaliter Christiana.” The
natural, instinctive course, like everything in nature,
follows the principle of least resistance. One man is
rather more gifted here, another there ; or, again, adapta-
tion to the early environment of childhood may demand
either relatively more restraint and reflection or relatively
more sympathy and participation, according to the nature
of the parents and other circumstances. Thereby a certain
preferential attitude is automatically moulded, which results
in different types. In so far then as every man, as a
relatively stable being, possesses all the basic psychological
functions, it would be a psychological necessity with a view
to perfect adaptation that he should also employ them in
equal measure. For there must be a reason why there
are different ways of psychological adaptation : evidently
one alone is not sufficient, since the object seems to be
only partially comprehended when, for example, it is
either merely thought or merely felt. Through a one-
sided (typical) attitude there remains a deficit in the
resulting psychological adaptation, which accumulates
during the course of life ; from this deficiency a derange-
ment of adaptation develops, which forces the subject
towards a compensation. But the compensation can be
obtained only by means of amputation (sacrifice) of the
hitherto one-sided attitude. Thereby a temporary heaping
up of energy results and an overflow into channels hitherto
not consciously used though already existing unconsciously.
The adaptation deficit, which is the causa efficiens of the
process of conversion, becomes subjectively perceived as
a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Such an atmosphere
prevailed at the turning-point of our era. A quite
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 29
astonishing need of redemption came over mankind, and
brought about that unheard-of efflorescence of every sort
of possible and impossible cult in ancient Rome. More-
over, representatives of the ‘living the full life/ theory
were not wanting, who, albeit innocent of ‘biology/
operated with similar arguments founded on the science
of that day. They, too, could never be done with specula-
tions as to why it is that mankind is in such a poor way ;
only the causalism of that day, as compared with the
science of ours, was somewhat less restricted; their
‘harking back’ reached far beyond childhood to cos-
mogony, and many systems were devised that pointed to
all sorts of events in remote antiquity as being the source
of insufferable consequences for mankind.
The sacrifice that Tertullian and Origen carried out
is drastic — too drastic for our taste — but it corresponded
with the spirit of that time, which was thoroughly concret-
istic. In harmony with this spirit the Gnosis simply took
its visions as real, or at least as bearing directly upon
reality, hence for Tertullian there was an objective
validity in the realities of his feeling. Gnosticism pro-
jected the subjective inner perception of the attitude-
changing process into the form of a cosmogonic system,
and believed in the reality of its psychological figures.
In my book Psychology of the Unconscious 1 I left the
whole question open as to the origin of the libido course
peculiar to the Christian process. I spoke of a splitting
of theJibido into halves, each directed against the other.
The explanation for this is to be found in the one-sided-
ness of the psychological attitude growing so extreme that
the need for compensation became urgent on the side of
the unconscious. It is precisely the Gnostic movement
in the early Christian centuries which most clearly demon-
1 Translated by Dr B. M. Hinkle (London : Kegan Paul & Co
19x9 ; new edn. 1921).
30 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
strates the outbreak of unconscious contents in the moment
of compensation. Christianity itself signified the demolition
and sacrifice of the cultural values of antiquity, i.e. of the
classical attitude. As regards the problem of the present,
it need hardly be said that it is quite indifferent whether
we speak of to-day or of that age two thousand years ago.
2. The Theological Disputes of the Ancient Church
It is more than probable that the contrast of types
would also appear in the history of those schisms and
heresies so frequent in the disputes of the early Christian
Church. The Ebionites or Jewish Christians, who in
this respect were probably identical with the primitive
Christians generally, believed in the exclusive humanity
of Christ and held him to be the son of Mary and Joseph,
only subsequently receiving his consecration through the
Holy Ghost. The Ebionites are, therefore, upon this
point diametrically opposed to the Docetists. The effects
of this opposition endured long after. The conflict came
to light again in an altered form — which, though essenti-
ally attenuated, had in reality an even graver effect upon
Church politics — about the year 320 in the heresy of
Arius. Arius denied the formula propounded by the
orthodox church T£ Uarrpl o/uloovctlos (like unto the Father).
When we examine more closely the history of the great
Arian controversy concerning Homoousiaand Homoiousia
(the complete identity as against the essential similarity
of Christ with God), it certainly seems to us that the
formula of Homoiousia definitely lays the accent upon
the sensuous and humanly perceptible, in contrast to the
purely conceptual and abstract standpoint of Homoousia.
In the same way it would appear to us, as though the
revolt of the Monophysites (who upheld the absolute
one-ness of the nature of Christ) against the Dyophysitic
formula of the Council of Chalcedon (which upheld the
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 31
inseparable duality of Christ, namely his human and
divine nature fashioned in one body) once more asserted
the standpoint of the abstract and unimaginable as
opposed to the sensuous and natural viewpoint of the
Dyophysitic formula. At the same time the fact becomes
overwhelmingly clear to us that alike in the Arian move-
ment as in the Monophysite dispute, the subtle dogmatic
question, though indeed the main issue for those minds
where it originally came to light, had no hold upon the
vast majority who took part in the quarrel of dogmas. So
subtle a question had even at that time no motive force
with the mass, stirred as it was by problems and claims
of political power that had nothing to do with differences
of theological opinion. If the difference of types had
any significance at all here, it was merely because it
provided catch-words that gave a flattering label to the
crude instincts of the mass. But in no way should this
blind one to the fact that, for those who had kindled the
quarrel, Homoousia and Homoiousia were a very serious
matter. For concealed therein, both historically and
psychologically, lay the Ebionitic creed of a purely
human Christ with only a relative (“ apparent ”) divinity,
and the Docetist creed of a' purely divine Christ with
only apparent corporeality. And beneath this level again
lies the great psychological schism. The one position
holds that supreme value and importance lie in the
sensuously perceptible, where the subject, though indeed
not always human and personal, is nevertheless always a
projected human sensation; while the other maintains
that the chief value lies in the abstract and extra-human,
of which the subject is the function ; in other words in
the objective process of Nature, that runs its course
determined by impersonal law, beyond human sensation,
of which it is the actual foundation. The former stand-
point overlooks the function in favour of the function-
3 *
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
complex, if man can be so regarded ; the latter standpoint
overlooks the individual as the indispensable controlling
vehicle in favour of the function. Both standpoints
mutually deny each other their chief value. The more
resolutely the representatives of either standpoint identify
themselves with their own point of view, the more do
they mutually strive, with the best intentions perhaps,
to obtrude their own standpoint and thereby violate the
other’s chief value.
Another aspect of the type-antithesis appears on the
scene in the Pelagian controversy in the beginning of the
fifth century. The experience so profoundly sensed by
Tertullian, that man cannot avoid sin even after baptism,
grew with St Augustine — who in many respects is not
unlike Tertullian — into that thoroughly characteristic
pessimistical doctrine of original sin, whose essence con
sists in the concupiscentia 1 inherited from Adam. Over
against the fact of original sin there stood, according to
St Augustine, the redeeming grace of God, with the
institution of the church ordained by His grace to
administer the means of salvation. In this conception the
value of man stands very low. He is really nothing but
a miserable rejected creature, who is delivered over to the
devil under all circumstances, unless through the medium
of the church, the sole means of salvation, he is made a
participator of the divine grace. Therewith, to a greater
or less degree, not only man’s value but also his moral
freedom and self-government crumbled away ; as a result,
the value and importance of the church as an idea was so
much the more enhanced, corresponding to the expressed
programme in the Augustinian civitas Dei.
Against such a stifling conception, springing ever anew,
i Cupidity. We would rather say: untamed libido, which as
clfjMpfiivT} (rule of the stars, or fate) led man into wrong-doing and
destruction.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 33
rises the feeling of the freedom and moral value of man ;
it is a feeling that will not long endure suppression
whether by inspection however searching, or logic however
keen. The justice of the feeling of human value found its
advocates in Pelagius, a British monk, and Caelestius, his
pupil. Their teaching was grounded upon the moral
freedom of man as a given fact It is significant of the
psychological kinship existing between the Pelagian
standpoint and the Dyophysitic view that the persecuted
Pelagians found asylum with Nestorius, the Metropolitan
of Constantinople. Nestorius emphasized the separation
of the two natures of Christ in contrast to the Cyrillian
doctrine of the <j>ixruc)i evuxris, the physical one-ness of
Christ as God-man. Also, Nestorius definitely did not
wish Mary to be understood as deoroicos (Mother of God),
but only as xpkttotoko 9 (Mother of Christ). With some
justification he even called the idea that Mary was Mother
of God heathenish. From him originated the Nestorian
controversy, which finally ended with the secession of the
Nestorian church.
3. The Problem of Transubstantiation
With those immense political upheavals, the collapse
of the Roman Empire and the sinking of antique civiliza-
tion, these controversies lapsed likewise into oblividn.
But, as in the course of many centuries a certain stability
was again reached, psychological differences also re-
appeared, tentatively at first but becoming ever niore
intense with advancing civilisation. No longer indeed
was it those problems which had brought the ancient
church into confusion; new forms had come to light,
under which however the same psychology was concealed
About the middle of the ninth century the Abbot
Paschasius Radbertus appeared with a writing upon the
Holy Communion, in which he advanced the doctrine of
34
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
transubstantiation, i.e . the view that the wine and holy
wafer become transformed in the Communion into the
actual blood and body of Christ As is well-known, this
conception became a dogma, according to which the
transformation is accomplished w vere, realiter, sub-
stantialiter ” (“ in truth, in reality, in substance ”) ; although
the ‘ accidentals ’ preserve their outer aspect of bread and
wine, they are substantially the flesh and the blood of
Christ. Against this extreme concretization of a symbol
Ratramnus, a monk of the same monastery in which
Radbertus was abbot, dared to raise a certain opposition.
Radbertus, however, found a more resolute adversary in
Scotus Erigena, one of the great philosophers and daring
thinkers of the early Middle Ages ; who, as Hase says in
his j History of the Churchy stood so high and solitary above
his time that the anathema of the Church reached him
only after centuries. As Abbot of Malmesbury, he was
butchered by his own monks about the year 889. Scotus
Erigena, to whom true philosophy was also true religion,
was no blind follower of authority and the ‘ once accepted ’ ;
because, unlike the majority of his age, he could himself
think. He set reason above authority, very unseasonably
perhaps but in a way that assured him of the recognition
of the later centuries. Even the Fathers of the Church,
who were considered to be above discussion, he held as
authorities only in so far as their writings contained
treasures of human reason. Thus he also held that the
Communion is merely a commemoration of that Last
Supper which Jesus celebrated with his disciples; a view
in which the reasonable man of every age will, moreover,
participate. But Scotus Erigena, although clear and
humanly simple in his thoughts and little disposed to
detract from the meaning and value of the sacred ceremony,
was not at one with the spirit of his time and the desires
of the world around him ; a fact that might, indeed, be
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
35
inferred from his betrayal and assassination by his
own comrades of the cloister. Because he could think
reasonably and consistently success did not come to him ;
instead, it fell to Radbertus, who assuredly could not
think, but who * transubstantiated * the symbolical and
meaningful, making it coarse and sensuous : in so doing
he clearly chimed in with the spirit of his time, which
craved for the concretizing of religious occurrences.
Again, in this controversy one can easily recognise
those basic elements which we have already met with in
the disputes commented upon earlier, namely, the abstract
standpoint that is averse from any intercourse with the
concrete object and the concretistic, that is, turned to the
object.
Far be it from us to pronounce, from the intellectual
view-point, a one-sided, depreciatory judgment upon Rad-
bertus and his achievement. Although to the modem
mind this dogma must appear simply absurd, w;e must
not be misled on that account into regarding it as historic-
ally worthless. It is, indeed, a showpiece for every
collection of human errors, but its worthlessness is not
therefore eo ipso established; before passing judgment,
we must minutely investigate what this dogma effected
in the religious life of those centuries, and what our age
still indirectly owes to its operation. It must, for instance
not be overlooked, that it is precisely the belief in the
reality of this miracle that demanded a release of the
psychic process from the purely sensuous ; and this cannot
remain without influence upon the nature of the psychic
process. The process of directed thinking, for instance,
becomes absolutely impossible when the sensuous holds
too high a threshold value. By virtue of too high a value
it constantly invades the psyche, where it disintegrates
and destroys the function of directed thinking based as
this is precisely upon the exclusion of the unsuitable,
36 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
From this elementary consideration there immediately
follows the practical importance of those rites and dogmas
which hold their ground both from this standpoint as well
as from a purely opportunist, biological way of thinking ;
to say nothing of the direct specific religious impressions
which came to individuals from belief in this dogma.
Highly as we esteem Scotus Erigena, the less is it per-
mitted to despise the achievement of Radbertus. We
may, however, learn from this example, that the thought
of the introvert is incommensurable with the thought of
the extravert, since the two thought-forms, as regards
their determinants, are wholly and fundamentally different.
One might perhaps say : the thinking of the introvert is
rational , while that of the extravert is programmatical.
These arguments — and this I wish particularly to
emphasize — do not pretend to be in any way decisive with
regard to the individual psychology of the two authors.
What we know of Scotus Erigena personally — it is little
enough — is not sufficient to enable us to make any sure
diagnosis of his type. What we do know speaks in favour
of the introversion type. Of Radbertus we know next to
nothing. We know only that he said something that ran
counter to common human thought, but with surer feeling-
logic he divined what his age was prepared to accept as
suitable. This fact would speak in favour of the extra-
version type. We must, however, through our insufficient
knowledge, suspend judgment upon both personalities,
since, especially with Radbertus, the matter might quite
well be decided differently. Equally might he have been
an introvert, but with a level of intelligence that altogether
failed to rise above the conceptions of his milieu, and with
a logic so lacking in originality that it merely sufficed to
draw an obvious conclusion from already prepared premises
in the writings of the Fathers. And, vice versa, Scotus
Erigena might as well have been an extravert, if it could
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 37
be shown that he was carried by a milieu which in any
case was distinguished by common sense and which felt
a corresponding expression to be suitable and desirable.
The latter is in no sort of way proved concerning Scotus
Erigena. But on the other hand we do know how great
was the yearning of that time for the reality of the
religious miracle. To this character of that age the view
of Scotus Erigena must have seemed cold and deadening,
whilst the assertion of Radbertus must have been alive
with a sense of promise, since it concretized what every
man desired.
4. Nominalism and Realism
The Holy Communion controversy of the ninth
century was merely the anacrusis of a much greater strife
that for centuries severed the minds of men and embraced
immeasurable consequences. This was the opposition
between nominalism and realism.
By nominalism one understands that school which
asserted that the so-called universalia, namely the generic
or universal concepts, such as beauty, goodness, animal,
man, etc., are nothing but nomina (names) or words,
derisively called “ flatus vocis”. Anatole France says : “ Et
qu’est-ce que penser? Et comment pense-t-on? Nous
pensons avec des mots — songez-y, un m6taphysicien n’a,
pour constituer le systfeme du monde, que le cri- perfection^
des singes et des chiens.” This is extreme nominalism ;
so with Nietzsche when he conceives reason as "speech
metaphysics ”.
Realism, on the contrary, affirms the existence of the
universalia ante rem, namely, that the universal concepts
have existence in themselves after the manner of the
Platonic ideas. Despite its ecclesiastical association,
nominalism is a sceptical current which denies that separate
existence which is characteristic of the abstract It is a
3 »
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
kind of scientific scepticism within a quite rigid dogmatism.
Its concept of reality necessarily coincides with the sensuous
reality of things ; it is the individuality of things which
represents the real as opposed to the abstract idea. Strict
realism, on the contrary, transfers the accent of reality
to the abstract, the idea, the universal, which it places ante
rem (before the thing).
(a) The Problem of the Universalia in the Classical Age
As is shown by the reference to the Platonic ideology,
we are discussing a conflict that reaches very far back.
Certain venomous remarks in Plato concerning “grey-
beards and belated scholars” and “the poor in spirit*
hint at the representatives of two allied schools oi
philosophy which agreed ill. with the Platonic spirit,
namely the Cynics and the Megarians. Antisthenes,
the representative of the former school, although by no
means remote from the Socratic mental atmosphere and
even a friend of Xenophon, was nevertheless avowedly ill-
disposed to Plato’s beautiful world of ideas. He even
wrote a pamphlet against Plato, in which he offensively
converted Plato’s name to 2a0o>j/. 2a0*>j/ means boy or
man, but from the sexual aspect, since craOcov comes
from c raOrj, penis; whereby Antisthenes, in the well-
known manner of projection, delicately suggests to us
upon what matters he has a grudge against Plato. As
we have seen, this was also for Origen, the Christian, the
‘other* — prime-cause (Auch-Urgrund), that very devil
whom he sought to lay hold of by means of self-castration,
in order to pass over without impediment into the richly
embellished world of ideas. But Antisthenes was a pre-
Christian pagan, to whom that thing was still of profound
interest for which the phallus since earliest times has stood
as the acknowledged symbol, namely sensation in its most
liberal sense; not that he was alone in this interest, for
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 39
as we well know it concerned the whole Cynic school,
whose Leitmotiv was: back to nature 1 The reasons
which might push Antasthenes’ concrete feeling and
sensation into the foreground were by no means few ; he
was before everything a proletarian, who made a virtue of
his envy. He was no Idayevrjg, no thorough-bred Greek :
he was of the periphery ; moreover, his teaching was
carried on outside, before the gates of Athens, where he
devoted himself to the study of proletarian behaviour, a
model of Cynic philosophy. Furthermore, the whole school
was composed of proletarians, or at least “ peripheral”
people, all of whom were in themselves a demolishing
criticism of traditional values. After Antisthenes one of
the most outstanding representatives of the school was
Diogenes, who conferred upon himself the title Kww/
(Dog) ; his tomb was also adorned by a dog in Parian
marble. Despite his warm love of man, for his whole
nature irradiated a wealth of human understanding, he
none the less ruthlessly satirized everything that men of
his time held sacred. He ridiculed the horror that gripped
the spectators in the theatre at sight of the Thyestian
repast *, or the incest tragedy of CEdipus ; anthropophagy
was not so bad, since human flesh can lay no claim to an
exceptional position as against other flesh, and furthermore
the misfortune of an incestuous relationship was by no
means such a grave evil, as the illuminating example of
our domestic animals proves to us. In various respects
the Megarian school was allied to the Cynics. Was not
Megara the unhappy rival of Athens? After a most
promising start, in which Megara had risen to prominence
through the founding of Byzantium and the Hyblaeaic
Megara in Sicily, internal squabbles broke out, from which
1 Thyestes. son of Pelops, in the course of a struggle for the kingdom
with his brother Atreus, was given — unknown to himself — the flesh
of his own children to eat. [Translator]
40 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
Megara soon wasted and fell away, and in every respect
became outstripped by Athens. Loutish peasant wit was
called in Athens: ‘ Megarian jesting*. From this envy,
which in a defeated race is imbibed with the mother’s milk,
not a little might be explained that is characteristic of
Megarian philosophy. Like the Cynic, this philosophy
was thoroughly nominalistic and directly opposed to the
realism of Plato’s ideology.
A prominent representative of this school was Stilpon
of Megara, about whom the following characteristic anecdote
is related : Stilpon came one day to Athens and saw upon
the Acropolis the wondrous statue of Pallas Athene made
by Phidias. A true Megarian, he observed, it is not the
daughter of Zeus , but of Phidias . In this jest the whole
of the Megarian thought is expressed, for Stilpon taught
that generic concepts are without reality or objective
validity ; who, therefore, speaks of man speaks of nobody,
because he designates “ oure tovSg oure tov&g” (“neither
this nor that”). Plutarch ascribes to him the statement
“erepov ercpov jurj icaTijyopeicrdai ” (“one thing can affirm
nothing concerning [the nature of] another ”). Antisthenes'
teaching was very similar. The most ancient representa-
tive of this manner of thought seems to have been Antiphon
of Rhamnus, a Sophist and contemporary of Socrates.
One statement handed down from him runs : “ Whoso
perceiveth just some long objects, neither seeth length
with the eyes nor discerneth it with the mind.” The
denial of the substantiality of the generic concept follows
directly from this statement. Naturally the whole position
of the Platonic ideas is undermined by this characteristic
sort of judgment, for with Plato it is precisely ideas that
receive an eternal and immutable validity, while the
“actual” and the “multiple” are merely a fugitive re-
flection. The Cynic-Megarian criticism, on the contrary,
from the standpoint of the actual, resolves these generic
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
4 *
concepts into purely casuistic and descriptive nomina,
without any substantiality. The accent is laid upon the
individual thing.
This manifest and fundamental opposition was lucidly
apprehended by Gomperz as the problem of inherency
and predication . When, for instance, we speak of ‘ warm ’
and e cold *, we speak of * warm * and ‘ cold * things, to which
c warm * and ‘ cold * as attributes, predicates, or assertions
respectively belong. The statement refers to something
perceived and actually existing, namely to a warm or a
cold body. From a plurality of similar cases we abstract
the concepts of 1 warmth * and ‘ coldness *, with which also
we immediately connect or associate something concrete.
Thus ‘ warmth 9 and ‘ coldness *, etc., are to us something
real, because of the perseveration of perception in the
abstraction. It is extremely difficult for us to strip off
that which pertains to things from the abstraction, since
there naturally clings to every abstraction its corresponding
derivation. In this sense the ‘ thing-ness * of the predicate
is essentially a priori. If now, we pass over to a higher
grade generic concept * temperature *, its ‘thingness* (das
Dinghafte) is still readily perceptible to us, so that, in
spite of a certain diminution in its sensuous definiteness,
it has renounced none of its representability. But repre-
sentability also adheres closely to sensual perception.
If we further ascend to a still higher generic concept, viz.
energy , the character of ‘ thingness * quite disappears, and
with it, to a certain degree, goes the quality of representa-
bility. At this point the conflict about the “nature” of
energy appears : whether energy is purely conceptual and
abstract, or whether something real. Assuredly the learned
nominalist of our day is quite convinced that ‘ energy * is
merely a nomen, a ‘ counter * of our mental calcule ; yet,
in spite of this, our every-day speech refers to ‘energy*
as though it were something quite tangible; thus con-
4 *
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
stantly sowing among devoted heads the greatest confusion
from the standpoint of the theory of cognition.
The reality of the purely conceptual, which thus
naturally creeps into our process of abstraction, and
evokes the “ reality ” either of the predicate or the abstract
idea, is no artificial product, no arbitrary hypostasizing of
a concept, but necessary by nature. For it is not the
case that the abstract idea is arbitrarily hypostasized and
transplanted into another world of equally artificial origin :
the actual historical process is just the reverse. With the
primitive, for instance, the imago, the psychic reverberation
of the sense-impression, is so strong and so avowedly
sensuous in hue and texture, that, when it appears repro-
duced, ue. as a spontaneous memory-image, it sometimes
even has the quality of hallucination. Thus when the
memory -image of his dead mother suddenly reappears to
a primitive, it is as if it were her ghost that he sees and
hears. We only 1 think ’ of the dead, the primitive per-
ceives them, just because of the extraordinary sensuousness
of his mental images. Hence arises the primitive belief
in ghosts. The ghosts are what we quite simply call
* thoughts \ When the primitive ‘ thinks he literally has
visions, whose reality is so great that he is constantly mis-
taking the psychic for the real. Powell says : “ The primary
and fundamental confusion in the thought of uncivilized
peoples is the confusion of the objective and the subjective.’*
Spencer and Gillen observe : “ What a savage experiences
during a dream is just as real to him as what he sees when
he is awake.” What I myself have seen of the psychology
of the negro completely endorses that finding. From this
basic fact of the sensuous realism of the image, in presence
of the autonomy of the sense impression, springs the belief
in spirits, and not from any need of explanation on the
part of the savage, which is merely a European imputation.
For the primitive, thought is visionary and auditoiy —
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 43
hence it also has the character of revelation. Thus the
magician, i.e. the visionary, is always the thinker of the
tribe who brings to pass the manifestation of spirits or
gods. This is the source of the magical effect of thought ;
it is as good as action, just because it is real. In the same
way the word, the outer covering of thought, has ‘real’
effect, because the word calls up ‘ real * memory images.
Primitive superstition surprises us only because we have
very largely succeeded in de-sensualizing the psychic
image, ie. we have learnt to think ‘ abstractly always, of
course, with the above-mentioned limitations.
Whoever is engaged in the practice of analytical
psychology grows constantly more aware of the fact that
a frequent reminder is necessary, even for his ‘ educated *
European patients, that ‘thinking* is not ‘action*; this
one needs it, may be, because he believes that to think
something is enough, and that one, because he feels he
must not think something, else must he go and do it
The dream of the normal individual, and the hallucination
that accompanies mental disorientation; show how easily
the primitive reality of the psychic image once more
emerges. Mystical practice endeavours, even by use of
artificial introversion, to re-establish the primitive reality
of the imago, in order to increase the counter-weight
against extraversion. We find a speaking example of
this in the initiation of the Mohammedan mystic,
Tewekkul-Beg, by Molla-Shclh 1 . Tewekkul-Beg relates :
“ After these words he (Molla-Sh&h) called me to seat myself
opposite to him, while still my senses were as though bemused,
and commanded me to create his own image in my inner self ;
and after he had bound mine eyes, he bade me assemble all the
forces of the soul into my heart. I obeyed, and in the twinkling
of an eye, by divine favour and with the spiritual succour of the
Sheikh, my heart was opened. I beheld there in my innermost
heart something resembling an overturned bowl; when this
1 Buber, Ekstatische Konfessionen, 1909, p. 31 ft.
44
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
vessel was righted, a feeling of boundless joy flooded my whole
being. I said to the Master : * From this cell, in which I am
seated before thee, I behold within me a true vision, and it is
as though another Tewekkul-Beg were seated before another
Molla-Shdh. ' ”
The Master explained this to him as the first phenomena
of his initiation. Other visions soon followed, when once
the way to the primitive real images had been opened
up.
The reality of the predicate is granted a priori , since it
has always existed in the human mind. Only by subse-
quent criticism is the abstraction deprived of the character
of reality. Even in the time of Plato the belief in the
magical reality of the word-idea was so great that it was
actually worth the philosopher’s while to devise traps or
fallacies by which he was able, with the aid of the absolute
verbal significance, to extort an absurd reply. A simple
example is the Enkekalymmenos (the veiled man) fallacy,
called after the Megarian Eubulides. It is worded as
follows: “Canst thou recognize thy father ? Yes. Canst
thou recognise this veiled man? No. Thou contra-
dictest thyself; for this veiled man is thy father. Thus
thou canst recognize thy father and yet at the same time
not recognize him.” The fallacy lies merely in this, that
the one questioned naively assumes that the word 1 recog-
nize ’ designates in all cases one and the same objective
matter of fact, while in reality its validity is limited only to
certain definite cases. The fallacy of the Keratines (the
homed one) rests upon the same principle: it runs as
follows: "What thou hast not lost, thou still hast; thou
hast not lost horns, therefore thou hast horns.” Here also
the fallacy lies in the naivete of the questioned one, who
accepts in the premise a definite matter of fact. It could
be convincingly proved by this method that absolute
verbal significance was a delusion. As a consequence, the
reality of the generic concept, which in the form of the
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
45
Platonic idea 1 had a metaphysical existence and exclusive
validity, was also in jeopardy. Gomperz says: “Men
were not yet filled with that distrust of speech which
inspires us and makes us perceive in words a frequently
quite inadequate expression of the actual facts. Instead,
there prevailed the naive belief that the orbit of the mean-
ing and the orbit of application of the word on the whole
corresponding with it must in every respect coincide.”
In presence of this absolute magical verbal significance,
which pre-supposes that in the word there is also given
the objective behaviour of things, the Sophist criticism is
thoroughly in place. It convincingly proves the impotence
of language. In so far as ideas are only nomina — a
supposition that has to be proved — the attack upon Plato
is justified. But generic concepts cease to be merely
nomina when similarities or conformities of things are
designated by them. Then the question at issue is,
whether or not these conformities are objective realities.
Such conformities actually exist, hence the generic concept
also corresponds with reality. As a container of the
reality of a thing, it is as good as the exact description of
a thing. The generic concept is distinguished from the
latter only in the fact that it is the description or designa-
tion of the conformities of things. The discrepancy, there-
fore, lies neither in the concept nor in the idea but in its
verbal expression, which obviously under no circumstances
renders either the thing adequately or the conformity of
things. The nominalist attack upon the doctrine of ideas
is therefore, in principle, an encroachment without justifica-
tion. Thus Plato’s irritated parry was altogether justified.
According to Antisthenes, the inherency-principle
i The unities which lie at the basis of the visible and changeable,
and which can be reached only by pure thinking, were ideas in Plato's
sense. He included under the term everything stable amidst changing
phenomena, e.g. the ideas of genus, species, and the laws and ends of
Nature. [Translator!
4 *
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
consists in this, that not only not many predicates, but
that no predicate at all, can be affirmed of a subject which
differs from it Antisthenes granted as valid only those
predicates that were identical with the subject Apart
from the circumstance that such statements of identity (as
‘the sweet is sweet*) affirm nothing at all and are, there-
fore, without meaning, the weakness of the inherency
principle lies in this : that a judgment of identity has also
nothing to do with the thing ; the word ‘ grass * has literally
nothing to do with the thing ‘grass.’ The principle of
inherency suffers then in much the same degree as the
ancient word-fetichism, which naively assumes that the
word coincides also with the thing. When, therefore, the
nominalist calls to the realist : “ You are dreaming — you
think you are dealing with things, but in reality you are
only fighting verbal chimeras ”, the realist can answer the
nominalist in precisely the same words ; for neither is the
nominalist concerned with things in themselves but with
words, which he sets in the place of things. Even when
for every separate thing he sets a separate word, yet they
are always only words and not things themselves.
Although indeed, the idea of “ energy ” is admittedly
a verbal concept, it is nevertheless so extraordinarily real
that the electrical Company pays dividends out of it. The
board of directors would certainly allow no metaphysical
argument to convince them of the unreality of energy.
‘Energy* simply designates the undeniable conformity
of the phenomena of force, which in the most telling ways
daily proves its existence. In so far as the thing is real,
and a word conventionally designates the thing, the word
also receives ‘reality-significance*. In so far as the con-
formity of things is real, the generic concept designating
the conformity of things also receives ‘ reality-signific-
ance*; furthermore, it is a significance that is neither
greater nor less than that of the word which designates
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 47
the individual thing. The shifting of the accent of value
from one side to the other is a matter of individual attitude
and contemporary psychology. Gomperz also felt this
psychological foundation in Antisthenes, and brings out
the following points : . . . “ a sturdy commonsense, a resist-
ance to all enthusiasm, perchance also a strength of indi-
vidual feeling, which stamp the personality and therefore
the whole individual character as a type of complete
reality.” We might further add, the envy of a man without
the full rights of citizenship, a proletarian, a man whom
fate had sparingly endowed with beauty, and who could
at the best, only climb to the heights by demolishing the
values of others. Especially was this characteristic of
the Cynic, who must ever be carping at others, and to
whom nothing was sacred when it chanced to belong to
another ; he even made no scruples at destroying the peace
of the home, if he might thereby seize an occasion to
impose upon mankind his invaluable counsel.
To this essentially critical attitude of mind Plato’s
world of ideas with its eternal reality stands diametrically
opposed. It is plain that the psychology of the man who
fashioned that world had an orientation that was altogether
foreign to the critical, disintegrating judgments portrayed
above. Plato’s thinking, abstracted and created from the
plurality of things synthetic constructive concepts, which
designate and express the universal conformities of things
as the essentially existing. Their invisible and supra-
human quality is directly opposed to the concretism of
the inherency principle, which would reduce the material
of thought to the category of the unique, individual, and
objective. This attempt is, however, just as impossible
as the exclusive acceptance of the principle of predication,
which would exalt what has been affirmed concerning
many isolated things to an eternally existing substance
above all decay. Both forms of judgment are justifiable,
4$ PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
as both are also naturally present in every man. This is
best seen, according to my view, in the fact that the very
founder of the Megarian school, Euclid of Megara, estab-
lished an “ All-unity ” principle that stands immeasurably
above the individual and casuistic. For he linked together
the Eleatic principle 1 of the “ existing ” with the “ good ”,
so that for him the “existing” and the “good” were
identical. Against which there stood only the “ non-
existing evil This optimistic 1 all-oneness is, of course
nothing but a generic concept of the highest order, one
that directly embraces the existing, but at the same time
contravenes all evidence, and this in a much higher degree
than the Platonic ideas. With this concept Euclid created
a compensation to the critical disintegration of the con-
structive judgment into mere word things. This all-in-one
principle is so remote and so vague that it utterly fails
to express the conformity of things ; it is no type at all,
but rather the product of a desire for a unity that shall 1
comprehend the disordered multitude of individual things.
The desire for such a unity urges itself upon all who pay
allegiance to an extreme nominalism, in so far as there
is an effort to emerge from the negatively critical attitude.
Hence, not at all infrequently we find in people of this sort
an idea of fundamental homogeneity that is manifestly
improbable and arbitrary. For the inherency principle
as an exclusive basis is an impossibility. Gomperz perti-
nently observes :
“ That such, an attempt will prove abortive in every age can
be foreseen. Its success was absolutely out of the question in
an age that was destitute in historical understanding, and in
which any deep insight into the soul was almost completely
i The Eleatic was a Greek school of philosophy founded by Xeno-
phanes of Elea about 460 b.c. Its fundamental doctrine was that the
One, Absolute, pure Being is the only real existence ; that the world
of phenomena, or the many, is merely an appearance. All attempts to
explain it, therefore, are useless. [Translator]
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
49
disregarded. The danger that the more obvious and trans-
parent, but taken all in all the less important, forms of useful-
ness should force the more concealed, but in reality the more
solid, potentialities into the background, was in such conditions
not only menacing — it was inevitable. In taking the anima.1
kingdom and primitive man for a model, and in the attempt to
prune back the outgrowths of civilization to this standard, a
destroying hand was laid upon much that was the fruit of a more
or less ascending development through countless myriads of
years.”
Constructive judgment — which, as opposed to inher-
ency, is based upon the conformity of things — has created
universal ideas which belong to the greatest values of
civilization. Even if these ideas belong only to the dead,
yet threads still bind us to them, which, as Gomperz says,
have gained an almost unbreakable strength. He con-
tinues : " The inanimate thing can merit a claim to honour,
consideration, and even self-sacrificing devotion, in the
same way as the human dead; one need only mention
the statues, graves, and colours of the soldier. But,
though I do violence to myself and succeed in my efforts
to tear down those threads, I will assuredly relapse into
brutality ; for I suffer grave damage to all those feelings
that clothe the hard rock-bottom of naked reality as with
a rich covering of living bloom. Upon the high valuation
of this covering growth, upon the estimation of all that
one might call inherited values, depends every refinement,
every grace and delicacy of life, every cultivation of animal
instinct, as well as every enjoyment and pursuit of art — in
fact, all those things which the Cynics without scruple or
compassion would have striven to uproot. Certainly —
and one may readily concede this to them and their not
inconsiderable modern following — there is a limit beyond
which we may not suffer the sway of the principle of
association to extend, without ourselves being equally
guilty of that same folly and superstition which quite
certainly grew out of the unlimited sway of that principle.”
C
5 °
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
We have entered thus minutely into the problem of
inherency and predication, not merely because this problem
was revived once more in the nominalism and realism of
the scholastics, but because it has never yet been finally
set at rest, and, presumably, it never will. For here again
the question at issue is the typical opposition between
the abstract standpoint — in which the decisive value
lies in the thought process itself — and the specific thinking
and feeling upon which, whether consciously or uncon-
sciously, the objective orientation is based. In the latter
case, the mental process is a means which has the develop-
ment of the personality for its end. It is little wonder
that it was precisely the proletarian philosophy that
adopted the inherency principle. Wherever sufficient
reasons exist for the shifting of emphasis upon individual
feeling, thinking and feeling become negatively critical,
through a poverty of positive creative energy (which is
diverted to personal ends); thinking declines to a mere
analytical organ that reduces down to the concrete and
the singular. Over the resulting accumulation of dis-
ordered individual things a vague all-in-oneness whose
wish character is more or less transparent will, at best,
supervene. But when the emphasis is laid upon the
mental processes, the result of the mental activity is super-
ordinated over the multiplicity as idea. The idea is as far
as possible de-personalized ; but the personal apprehension
goes over almost completely into the mental process which
it hypostasizes.
Before passing on we might perhaps enquire whether
the psychology of the Platonic ideology justifies us in the
supposition that Plato may personally belong to the intro-
verted type, and whether the psychology of the Cynics
and the Megarians allows us to reckon such figures as
Antisthenes, Diogenes, or Stilpon as extraverted? A
decision of the question put in this form is quite impossible.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
5 *
A really careful and minute examination of Plato’s authentic
writings considered as his ‘documents humains’ might
possibly allow one to conclude to which type he personally
belonged. For my own part, I would not venture to
pronounce any positive judgment. If someone were to
furnish evidence that Plato belonged to the extraverted
type, it would not surprise me. What has been trans-
mitted concerning the others is so very fragmentary that
a decision is, in my opinion, an impossibility.
Since the two kinds of thinking under review depend
upon a displacement of the accent of value, it is of course
equally possible in the case of the introvert that personal
apprehension may, for various reasons, be pushed into the
foreground and will supersede thinking, so that his thinking
becomes negatively critical. For the extravert, the accent
of value is laid upon the relation to the object simply,
and not necessarily upon his personal relationship to it
If the relation to the object stands in the foreground, the
mental process is already subordinate ; but, in so far as it
is exclusively occupied with the nature of the object and
avoids the admixture of personal apprehension, it does not
possess a destructive character. We have, therefore, to
note the particular conflict between the principles of
inherency and of predication as a special case , which in
the further course of our investigation will be given a
more thorough examination. The special nature of this
case lies in the positive and negative parts played by
personal apprehension. When the type (generic concept)
suppresses the individual thing to a shadow, then the type,
the idea, has won to reality. When the value of the
individual thing abolishes the type (generic concept),
anarchic disintegration is at work. Both positions are
extreme and unfair, but they make a contrasting picture
whose clear outlines leave nothing to be desired, and whose
very exaggeration brings into relief certain traits, which,
52 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
albeit in milder and therefore more concealed forms, also
adhere to the nature of the introverted and extraverted
type, even when personalities are concerned in whom
personal apprehension is not pushed into the foreground.
It makes, for instance, a considerable difference whether
the intellectual function is master or servant. The master
thinks and feels differently from the servant Even the
most far-reaching abstraction of the personal in favour
of the general value never renders a complete elimination
of personal admixture possible. Yet, in so far as this
exists, thought and feeling contain also those destructive
tendencies which proceed from the self-assertion of the
person in face of the inclemency of social conditions. But
it would surely be a great folly if, for the sake of personal
tendencies, we were to reduce values of universal reality
down to mere personal undercurrents. That would be
pseudo-psychology. Such, however, exists.
(< b ) The Universalia Problem in Scholasticism
The problem of the two forms of judgment remained
unsolved because — tertium non datur. Porphyrius handed
down the problem to the Middle Ages thus: “Mox de
generibus et speciebus illud quidem sive subsistant sive
in nudis intellectibus posita sint, sive subsistentia corporalia
sint an incorporalia, et utrum seperata a sensibilibus an
in sensibilibus posita et circa haec consistentia, dicere
recusabo.” (“ As regards the universal and generic con-
cepts, the real question is whether they are substantial or
merely intellectual, whether material or immaterial, whether
apart from things perceived or in and around them”).
Somewhat in this form the Middle Ages resumed the
discussion : they distinguished the Platonic view, the uni-
versalia ante rem, the universal or the idea as a standard
or example above all individual things and altogether
detached from them, existing b ovpavitp TOTr$>(in a heavenly
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
53
place), as the wise Diotima says to Socrates in the dialogue
upon Beauty :
“ This beauty will not reveal itself to him as a face or as hands
or whatever else belongeth to the body, nor yet as an abstract
statement or knowledge, nor as anything at all that belongeth to
another, whether it be an individual being on the earth or in
heaven or in any other place, but it is in and for itself , and is
itself eternally the same ; for every other beauty only partly
revealeth its beauty, so that itself, through the dawning and
passing hence of other beauty, is neither increased nor diminished,
nor yet sufEereth any ill.” ( Symposium , 211 B) .
The Platonic form, as we saw, stood opposed to the
critical assumption that generic concepts are merely words.
In this case the real is prius, the ideal posterius. To this
view the label was attached : universalia post rem.-
Between both conceptions stands the temperate realistic
conception of Aristotle, which can be called the “universalia
in re”, namely, that form (eiSos) and matter co-exist. The
Aristotelian standpoint is a concretistic attempt at a
settlement fully corresponding with Aristotle’s nature. In
contrast to the transcendentalism of his teacher Plato,
whose school then relapsed into a Pythagorean mysticism,
Aristotle was entirely a man of reality — of his classical
reality one should add — which contained much in concrete
form which was subtracted by later epochs and added to
the inventory of the human mind. His solution corre-
sponds with the concretism of classical common sense.
These three forms also show the structure of medieval
opinions in the great universalia dispute, which was the
real essence of the scholastic controversy. It cannot be
my task — even were I competent — to probe deeply into
the particular points of the great controversy. I must
content myself with a mere survey of the orientating
allusions.
The dispute began with the views of Johannes Roscel-
linus about the end of the eleventh century. The univer-
54 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
salia were for him nothing but nomina rerum, names of
things, or, as tradition says “ flatus vocis For him there
were only individual things. He was, as Taylor aptly
observes, “strongly held by the reality of individuals”.
To think of God also as only individual was the next
obvious conclusion, thereby dissolving the Trinity into
three persons ; so that Roscellinus actually arrived at
tritheism. That, the prevailing realism of that time, could
not stand ; in 1092 the views of Roscellinus were anathe-
matized by a synod at Soissons. Upon the other side stood
Guillaume von Champeaux, the teacher of Abelard, an
extreme realist but of Aristotelian complexion. According
to Abelard, he taught that one and the same thing existed
both in its totality and in different individual things at the
same time. There were no essential differences at all
between individual things, but merely a multiplicity of
1 accidentals ’. In the latter concept the actual differences
of things are explained as fortuitous, just as in the dogma
of transubstantiation, bread and wine, as such, are only
" accidentals ”.
Upon the side of realism also stood Anselm of Canter-
buiy, the father of the Scholastics. A genuine Platonist, the
universalia were for him part of the divine Logos. From
this position, the psychologically important proof of God
which Anselm established, and which is called the onto-
logical proof can also be understood. This proof demon-
strates the existence of God as contingent upon the idea
of God. Fichte (Psychologies ii, 120) formulated this proof
concisely as follows: “The existence of the idea of an
absolute in our consciousness proves the real existence of
this absolute.” Anselm’s view is that the concept of a
Supreme Being present in the intellect involves also the
quality of existence (non potest esse in intellectu solo).
He continues thus: “Vero ergo est aliquid, quo majus
cogitari non potest, ut nec cogitari posset non esse, et hoc
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
55
es tu, Deus noster.” (“In sooth there exists something
than which nothing greater can be thought, as also it
cannot be thought that it exists not, and this, our God,
art Thou ”). The logical weakness of the ontological argu-
ment is so obvious that it even requires psychological
explanation to show how a mind like Anselm’s could
advance such an argument. The immediate ground can
be sought in the general psychological disposition of
realism, namely in the fact that there were not only a
class of men, but, in keeping with the current of the age,
also certain groups of men who laid their accent of value
upon the idea, so that the idea represented for them a
higher reality or life-value than the reality of individual
things. Hence it seemed simply impossible to concede
that what to them was most valuable and significant should
not also really exist. Indeed, they had the most striking
proof of its efficacy to their very hands, since it is evident
that their lives, thoughts, and feelings were wholly orien-
tated to this point of view. The invisibility of the idea
matters little by the side of its extraordinary efficacy, which
in fact is a reality . They had an ideal and not a sensa-
tional concept of reality.
A contemporary opponent of Anselm, Gaunilo, objected,
it is true, that the oft-recurring idea of the Islands of the
Blessed (after the manner of Phaeacia; Homer, OcL viii)
does not necessarily prove their actual existence. This
objection is palpably reasonable. Not a few objections of
this nature were raised in the course of centuries, which,
however, in no way hindered the survival of the onto-
logical argument even down to quite recent times; for
it still found representatives in the nineteenth century
in Hegel, Fichte, and Lotze. Contradictions of this kind
are not to be ascribed to some peculiar defect in logic
or to an even greater infatuation for one side or the other.
That would be absurd. Rather is it a matter of deep-
56 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
seated psychological differences, which must be recognized
and upheld. The assumption that there exists only one
psychology or only one fundamental psychological prin-
ciple is an intolerable tyranny, belonging to the pseudo-
scientific prejudice of the normal man. People are always
speaking of the man and of his ‘psychology 1 , which is
invariably traced back to the ‘ nothing else but \ In the
same way one always talks of the reality, as though there
were only one. Reality is that which works in a human
soul and not that which certain people assume to be
operative, and about which prejudiced generalizations are
wont to be made. Moreover, however scientifically such
generalizations may be advanced, it must not be forgotten
that science is not the summa of life, that it is indeed
only one of the psychological attitudes, only one of the
forms of human thought
The ontological argument is neither argument nor proof,
but merely the psychological verification of the fact that
there is a class of men for whom a definite idea has
efficacy and reality — a reality which practically rivals the
world of perception. The sensationalist relies upon the
certainty of his ‘ reality \ and the man of the idea adheres
to his psychological reality. Psychology has to recognize
the existence of these two (or more) types, and must
under all circumstances avoid thinking of one as a mis-
conception of the other; and it should never seriously
try to reduce, one type to the other, as though everything
essentially ‘ other ’ were only a function of the one. This
does not mean that the trustworthy scientific principle —
principia explicandi praeter necessitatem non sunt multi-
plicanda — should be abrogated. But the necessity for a
plurality of psychological principles still remains. But,
quite apart from the foregoing arguments in favour of this
assumption, our eyes should be opened by the remarkable
fact that, notwithstanding the apparently final despatch
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
57
of the ontological argument by Kant, there are still not
a few post-Kantian philosophers who have again resumed
it. And we are to-day just as far or perhaps even further
from an understanding of the pairs of opposites — idealism :
realism, spiritualism: materialism, and all the subsidiary
questions involved therein — than were the men of the
early Middle Ages, who at least had a common world-
philosophy.
In favour of the ontological proof there is surely no
logical argument that appeals to the modem intellect.
The ontological argument in itself had really nothing to
do with logic, but in the form in which Anselm bequeathed
it to history there arises a supplementary intellectualized
or rationalized psychological fact , which, naturally, with-
out petitio principii or other sophistries could never have
occurred. But it is just in this that the unassailable validity
of the argument reveals itself; namely, that it exists, and
that the consensus gentium proves it to be universally
existing. It is the fact that has to be reckoned with,
not the sophistry of its proof ; for the impotence of the
ontological argument consists simply and solely in this :
that it will argue logically, while in reality it is much
more than a purely logical proof. For the real issue is
a psychological fact whose occurrence and effectiveness
are so overwhelmingly clear that no sort of argumentation
is needed. The consensus gentium proves that, in. the
statement “God is, because he is thought”, Anselm is
right. It is an obvious truth, indeed nothing but a state-
ment of identity. The ‘logical* argumentation about it
is quite superfluous, and is moreover wrong, inasmuch
as Anselm wished to establish his idea of God as a
concrete reality. He says : “ Existit ergo procul dubio
aliquid, quo majus cogitari non volet, et in intellectu et
in re.” Beyond all doubt there exists something than
which nothing greater can be thought, and moreover it
58 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
exists as much in the intellect as in the thing (. Dinglichkeit ,
‘reality’). The concept “res” was, however, to the Schol-
astics something that stood upon the same level as thought.
Thus Dionysius the Areopagite, whose writings exercised
a considerable influence upon early medieval philosophy,
distinguishes in neighbouring categories “ entia rationalia,
intellectualia, sensibilia, simpliciter existentia ” (rational,
intellectual, perceptible, simply existing things). Thomas
Aquinas calls that which is in the soul “res” (quod est
in anima), as also that which is outside the soul (quod
est extra animam). This noteworthy juxtaposition still
enables us to discern the primitive objectivity of the idea
in the thought of that time. From this mental attitude
the psychology of the ontological proof becomes easily
intelligible. The hypostasizing of the idea was not at all
an essential step ; but, rather, as an echo of the primitive
concreteness of thought, it was taken for granted. The
counter-argument of Gaunilo is psychologically insufficient,
for although, as the consensus gentium proves, the idea
of an Island of the Blessed frequently occurs, yet it is
indubitably less effective than the idea of God, which
consequently receives a higher “reality-value”.
Later writers who resumed the ontological argument
all fell, at least in principle, into Anselm’s error. Kant’s
reasoning should be final. We will therefore briefly
outline it. He says :
“The concept of an absolutely necessary Being is a pure
concept of reason, i.e. an idea only, whose objective reality is
not by any means proved because the reason has need of it.”
“ The unconditioned necessity of a judgment, however, is not
an absolute necessity of the thing. For the absolute necessity
of a judgment is only a conditioned necessity of the thing or of
the predicate in the judgment.”
Immediately prior to this Kant gives, as an example
of a necessary judgment, that a triangle must have
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 59
three angles. He is referring to this statement when
he continues :
“ The proposition just cited does not say that three angles
are absolutely necessary, but only that* if a triangle exists, it
must contain three angles. But this mere logical necessity has
given evidence of such a great power of illusion that people have
framed a priori the conception of a thing that seems to include
existence within its content, and have then assumed that because
existence belongs necessarily to the object as conceived, it must
also belong necessarily to the thing itself. Thus it is inferred
that there is an absolutely necessary being, because the existence
of that being is thought in a conception that has been arbi-
trarily assumed, and assumed under the supposition that there is
an actual object corresponding to it.”
The power of illusion to which Kant here alludes, is
nothing else but the primitive magical power of the word ’
which likewise mysteriously inhabits the idea. It needed
a long process of development before man once funda-
mentally realized that the word, the flatus vocis, does not in
every case also signify or effect a reality. But that certain
men have understood this, has not by any means sufficed
to uproot from every mind that superstitious power which
dwells within the formulated concept There is evidently
something in this 4 instinctive ’ superstition that will not be
uprooted: it exhibits, therefore, some right to existence,
which till now has not been sufficiently appreciated. The
paralogism (false conclusion) is in like manner introduced
into the ontological argument, namely through an illusion
which Kant elucidates as follows. He is now speaking of
the assertion of “ absolutely necessary subjects ” the con-
ception of which is simply inherent in the idea of existence,
and, therefore, without intrinsic contradiction cannot be
dismissed. This conception would be that of the “ most
real being for all
“ This being, it is said, possesses all reality, and such a being,
as I am willing to admit, we are justified in assuming to be pos-
sible. Now that which really comprehends all reality must
6o
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
comprehend also existence. Hence existence is involved in the
conception of a thing as possible. If, therefore, the thing is
denied existence, even its internal possibility is denied, and this
is self-contradictory. Either the thought in you must itself
be the thing, or you have simply assumed existence to be implied
in mere possibility, which is nothing but a wretched tautology.”
" Being is evidently no real predicate, i.e. a conception of
something that is capable of being added to the conception of
a thing. It is merely the ungrounded assertion of a thing or of
certain determinations as an object of thought. In logic, being
is simply the copula of a judgment. The proposition : * God is
omnipotent 1 contains two conceptions, the objects of which are
respectively ‘ God ’ and * omnipotence \ and the word is adds no
new predicate but is merely a sign that the predicate omnipotent is
asserted in relation to the subject God. If, then, I take the term
God, which is the subject, to comprehend the whole of the predi-
cates, including the predicate omnipotent, and say : * God is \ or
* There is a God *, I do not enlarge the conception of God by a new
predicate, but I merely bring the subject in itself with all its
predicates, in other words, the object, into relation with my con-
ception. The content of the object and of my conception must be
exactly the same, and hence I add nothing to my conception,
which expresses merely the possibility of the object by simply
placing its object before me in thought and saying that it is.
The real contains no more than the possible. A hundred real
dollars do not contain a cent more than a hundred possible
dollars. No doubt there are in my purse a hundred dollars more
if I actually possess them than if I have merely the conception —
that is, have merely the possibility of them.”
“ Our conception of an object may thus contain whatever
and how much it will; nevertheless we must ourselves stand
away from the conception, in order to bestow existence upon it.
This happens with sense-objects through the connection with
any one of our perceptions in accordance with empirical laws ;
but for objects of pure thought there is no sort of means for
perceiving their existence because it is wholly a priori that they
can be known ; our consciousness of all existence, however,
belongs altogether to a unity of experience and an existence
outside this held cannot absolutely be explained away as im-
possible. But it is a supposition that we have no means of
justifying.”
This detailed reminder of the fundamental exposition
of Kant seems to me necessary, since it is precisely here
that we find the sharpest division between the esse in
intellectu and the esse in re. Hegel cast the reproach at
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 61
Kant that one could not compare the idea of God with
the phantasy of a hundred dollars. But, as Kant rightly
pointed out, logic must be abstracted from all content;
there would certainly be no more logic if content were to
prevail. Seen from the standpoint of logic, there exists,
as ever, no third — between the logical “either . . . or.”
But between “ intellectus ” and “ res ” there is still “ anima,”
and this “esse in anima” makes the entire ontological
argument superfluous. Kant himself in his Critique of
Practical Reason (Eng. transl., p. 298) attempted on a large
scale to make a philosophical estimate of the “esse in
anima”. There he introduces God as a postulate of
practical reasoning proceeding from the a priori recog-
nition of “respect for moral law necessarily directed
towards the highest good, and the supposition or inference
therefrom of the objective reality of the same.”
The “ esse in anima ” then is a matter of psychological
fact, concerning which it is only necessary to decide whether
it appears once, often, or universally in human psychology.
The fact which is called God and is formulated “the
highest good” signifies, as the term already reveals, the
supreme psychic value, or in other words the idea which
either confers or actually receives the highest and most
general significance in respect of the determination of
our action and thought In the language of analytical
psychology the concept of God coincides with that com-
plex which, in accordance with the foregoing definition,
combines within itself the highest sum of libido (psychic
energy). Accordingly the actual God-concept of the anima
differs completely in different men — a fact which also
corresponds with experience. Even in the idea, God is
not one constant Being, still less is He so in reality.
For, as we well know, the highest operative value of a
human soul is variously located. There are men Ssv 6 deos
9 KoOda (whose God is their belly.— Phil., 3, 19) ; similarly
62 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
there are men whose God is money, science, power, sexuality,
&c. The whole psychology of the individual, at least in its
principal tendencies, is displaced in accordance with the
respective localization of the ‘highest good’, so that a
psychological theory which is exclusively based upon any
one basic instinct, as for example power or sexuality, can
adequately explain features of only secondary significance,
when applied to an individual of another orientation.
(c) A board's Attempt at Conciliation
It is not without interest to investigate how Scholas-
ticism itself attempted to settle the universalia dispute, how
it tried to create an equipoise between the typical opposites
which the tertium non datur divided. This attempt at
settlement was the work of Aboard, that unhappy man
who burned with love for H<61oise and who paid for his
passion with the loss of his manhood. Whoever is
acquainted with the life of Abelard will know how intensely
his own soul housed those severed opposites whose philo-
sophical reconciliation was for him such a vital issue.
De Rdmusat 1 characterizes Abelard as an eclectic, who
criticized and rejected every accepted theory concern-
ing the universalia, but who none the less freely borrowed
from thepi what was true and tenable. Abelard’s writings,
so far as they relate to the universalia dispute, are confusing
and difficult, because the author is constantly engaged in
weighing every argument and aspect of the case. It is
precisely because he acknowledged no truth in the avowed
standpoint, but always sought to comprehend and reconcile
the contrary view, which is responsible for the fact that he
was never once thoroughly understood even by his own
pupils. Some understood him as a nominalist, others as a
realist. This misunderstanding is characteristic: it is much
easier to think from one definite type — for within it one
1 Charles de Rlmusat, Abjlard (Paris 1845)
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 63
can remain logical and consistent — than it is to remain
consistent with both types, since the intermediate stand-
point is lacking. Realism as well as nominalism if pursued
consistently leads to finality, clarity, and uniformity. But
the weighing and adjustment of the opposites leads to
confusion and to an unsatisfactory issue for the types, since
to neither is the solution completely satisfying.
De Rdmusat has collected from Abelard’s writings a
whole series of almost contradictory assertions relating to
our subject He exclaims : “ Faut-il admettre en effet, ce
vaste et incoherent ensemble de doctrines dans la tfite d’un
seul homme et la philosophic d’ Abelard est elle le chaos ? ”
From nominalism Abelard takes the truth that the
universalia are words, in the sense that they are intellectual
conventions expressed by language ; furthermore, he takes
from it the truth that a thing in reality is not universal
but always something particular, and that substance in
reality is never a universal but an individual fact. From
Realism Abelard takes the truth that ‘ genera ’ and * species ’
are combinations of individual facts and things on the
ground of their indubitable similarity. Conceptualism is
for him the mediatory standpoint ; this is to be understood
as a function which comprises the individual objects per-
ceived, classifies them into genera and species upon the
ba«is of their similarity, and thus reduces their absolute
multiplicity to a relative unity. However unquestionable
multiplicity and diversity may be, the existence of
similarities, which by means of the concept makes fusion
possible, is equally beyond dispute. For whoever is
psychologically so adapted as to perceive mainly the
similarity of things the collective or constellating concept
is, so to speak, taken for granted, i.e. it frankly obtrudes
itself with the undeniable actuality of the sense-perception.
But, for the man who is psychologically so adjusted as to
perceive mainly the diversity of things, the similarity of
^4
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
things is not exclusively assumed ; what he sees is their
difference, which indeed forces itself upon him with just
as much actuality as similarity does to the other.
It seems as though “ feeling-into" (Einfuhlung) the
object were the psychological process which brought the
distinctiveness of the object into an especially bright light,
and as though abstraction from the object were the process
most calculated to blind one’s eyes to the actual distinc-
tiveness of individual things in favour of their general
similarity, which is the very foundation of the idea.
Feeling-into and abstraction combined produce that
function which underlies the idea of conceptualism. It is
founded, therefore, upon the only psychological function
which has any real possibility of uniting the divergence
between nominalism and realism and bringing them upon
a common way.
Although the Middle Ages knew how to speak great
words of the soul, psychology they had none, which is
one of the youngest of all • sciences. If at that time a
psychology had existed, Abelard would have framed the
esse in anima as his mediatory formula. De R6musat
clearly discerned this, for he says :
u Dans la logique pure les universalia ne sont que les termes
<Tun langage de convention. Dans la physique, qui est pour
lui plus transcendante qu’exp6rimentale, qui est sa v6ritable
ontologie, les genres et les espSces se fondent sur la manure dont
les Stres sont r6ellement produits et constitu^s. Enfin, entre la
logique pure et la physique, il y a un milieu et comme une science
mitoyenne, qu’on peut appeler une psychologic, oil Ab&ard
recherche comment s’engendrent nos concepts et retrace tout cette
g6n6alogie intellectuelle des Stres, tableau ou symbole de leur
hidrarchie et de leur existence r6elle.” (Tome ii, p. 112 )
The universalia ante rem and post rem have remained
a matter of dispute for every ensuing century, even though
they cast aside their scholastic robe and appeared under
a new disguise. Fundamentally it was the old problem.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
65
At one time the attempt at solution inclined towards the
realistic side, at another towards the nominalistic. The
scientific character of the nineteenth century gave the
problem a push once more towards the side of nominalism,
after the philosophy of the beginning of the nineteenth
century had first done full justice to realism. But the
opposites are no longer so widely sundered as in Abelard’s
time. We have a psychology, a mediatory science; which
alone is capable of uniting idea and thing, without doing
violence either to the one or to the other. . This capacity
abides in the very nature of psychology, but no one could
contend that psychology has hitherto accomplished this
task. One must, in this connection, acquiesce in the
words of De Rdmusat :
“ Abelard a done triomph.6 ; car, malgr6 les graves restrictions
qu’une critique clairvoyante d6couvre dans le nominalisme ou le
conceptualisme qu’on lui impute, son esprit est bien 1* esprit
moderne k son origine. II l'annonce, il le ddvance, il le promet.
La lumi&re qui blanchit au matin 1* horizon est d6j& celle de
l’astre encore invisible qui doit 6clairer le monde.”
If one overlooks the existence of psychological types,
as also the contingent circumstance that the truth of the
one is the error of the other, then Abelard’s labour will
mean nothing but one Scholastic sophistry the more.
But in so far as we recognize the existence of the two
types, the effort of Abelard must appear to us of the
greatest importance. He sefcks the mediatory standpoint
in the “ sermo,” by which he understood not so much a
“discourse” as a formed sentence joined to a definite
meaning; a definition, in fact, only requiring additional
words for the consolidation of its meaning. He does not
speak of “ verbum ,” for to nominalism this is nothing
more than a “vox,” a “flatus vocis.” Indeed, it is the
great psychological achievement of both the classic and
medieval nominalism that it completely abolished the
primitive, magical, or mystical identity of the word with
66
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
the objective matter of fact ; too completely, indeed, for
the type of man who has his foundation not in the foot-
hold offered by things but in the abstraction of the idea
from things. Abelard was too wide in his outlook to
have been able to overlook this value of nominalism. For
him the word was indeed a “ vox,” but the statement (or
in his language the “ sermo ”) was something more, for it
carried with it solid meaning, it described the common
factor, the idea, what in fact has been thought and under-
stood about things. In the sermo the universale lived,
and there alone. It is, therefore, intelligible that Abelard
was also counted among the nominalists ; incorrectly
however, for the universale was to him a greater reality
than a vox.
The expression of his Conceptualism must have been
difficult enough for Ab61ard, for he had necessarily to
construct it out of contradictions. An epitaph contained
in an Oxford manuscript gives us, I think, a searching
insight into the paradox of his teaching :
Hie docuit voces cum rebus significare,
Et docuit voces res significando notare ;
Errores generum correxit, ita specierum.
Hie genus et species in sola voce locavit,
Et genus et species sermones esse notavit.
Sic animal nullumque animal genus esse probatur.
Sic et homo et nullus homo species vocitatur.
In so far as an expression is striven for, that is based
in principle upon one standpoint, viz. the intellectual in
the case in point, the antagonism can hardly be bridged
except by paradox. We must not forget that the radical
difference between nominalism and realism is not purely
a logical and intellectual distinction but also a psycho-
logical one, which in the last resort amounts to a typical
difference of psychological attitude to the object as well
as to the idea. Whoever is orientated to the idea, appre-
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 67
hends and reacts from the angle of vision governed by
the idea. But the man who is orientated to the object,
apprehends and reacts from the standpoint of his sensation.
For him the abstract is of secondary importance, since
what must be thought about things seems to him relatively
inessential, while with the former it is just the reverse.
The man who is orientated to the object is naturally
nominalistic : “ the name is sound and smoke " (Goethe’s
Faust) in so far as he has 'not yet learnt to compensate his
objective attitude. Should this latter event take place,
he will become, if he has the necessary ability, an over-
nice logician, one who is constantly on the lookout for
a meticulousness, a method and a dullness that can equal
his own. The man who is orientated to the idea is
naturally logical ; that is why, when all is said and done,
he can neither understand nor appreciate text-book logic.
The development towards a compensation of his type
makes him, as we saw in Tertullian, a man of passionate
feeling, whose feelings, however, remain within the magic
circle of his ideas. But the man who is a logician by
compensation remains with his world of ideas within the
magic circle of his object.
With these reflections we come to the shaded side of
Abelard’s thought. His attempt at solution is one-sided.
If in the opposition between nominalism and realism it
were merely a question of logical-intellectual arrangement,
it would be incomprehensible why no terminal conclusion
other than a paradox is possible. But since it is a question
of a psychological opposition, a one-sided intellectual
formulation must end in paradox. “Sic et homo et nullus
homo species vocitatur ”. (“ Thus both man and not-man
are called species”). The logico-intellectual expression
is absolutely incapable, even in the form of the sermo, of
providing that mediatory formula which can do justice
to the real natures of the two opposing psychological
68 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
attitudes, for it is wholly derived from the side of the
abstract and is completely lacking in the recognition of
concrete reality.
Every logico-intellectual formulation, however embrac-
ing it may be, divests the objective impression of its
living and immediate quality. It must do this in order
to reach any formulation whatsoever. But, in so doing,
just that is lost which to the extraverted attitude seems
absolutely essential, namely the relationship to the real
object. No possibility exists, therefore, that we shall find
upon the line of either attitude any satisfactory and
reconciling formula. And yet man cannot remain in this
division— even if his mind could — for this discussion is not
merely amatter of remotephilosophy ; it is the daily repeated
problem of the relations of man to himself and to the
world. And, because this at bottom is the problem at issue,
the division cannot be resolved by a discussion of nominalist
and realist arguments. For its solution a third intermediate
standpoint is needed. To the “ esse in intellectu ” tangible
reality is lacking ; to the “ esse in re ” the mind.
Idea and thing come together, however, in the psyche
of man which holds the balance between them. What
would the idea amount to if the psyche did not provide
its living value? What would the objective thing be
worth if the psyche withheld from it the determining force
of the sense impression? What indeed is reality if it is
not a reality in ourselves, an “esse in anima”? Living
reality is the exclusive product neither of the actual,
objective behaviour of things, nor of the formulated idea ;
rather does it come through the gathering up of both in
the living psychological process, through the “esse in
anima,” Only through the specific vital activity of the
psyche does the sense-perception attain that intensity,
and the idea that effective force, which are the two in-
dispensable constituents of living reality.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 69
This peculiar activity of the psyche, which can be
explained neither as a reflexive reaction to sense-stimuli
nor as an executive organ of eternal ideas is, like every
vital process, a perpetually creative act Each new day
reality is created by the psyche. The only expression I
can use for this activity is phantasy . Phantasy is just as
much feeling as thought ; it is intuitive just as much as
sensational. There are no psychic functions which in
phantasy are not inextricably inter-related with the other
psychic functions. At one time it appears primordial, at
another as the latest and most daring product of gathered
knowledge. Phantasy, therefore, appears to me as the
clearest expression of the specific psychic activity. Before
everything it is the creative activity whence issue the
solutions to all answerable questions ; it is the mother of
all possibilities, in which too the inner and the outer
worlds, like all psychological antitheses, are joined in
living union. Phantasy it was and ever is which fashions
the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of object and
subject, of extraversion and introversion.
In phantasy alone are both mechanisms united.
If Abelard had gonedeep enough to recognize the psycho-
logical difference between the two standpoints, he would
logically have had to enlist phantasy for the formulation
of the reconciling expression. But in the world of science
phantasy is just as much taboo as is feeling. If, however,
we appreciate the underlying opposition as a psychological
one, it will be seen that psychology is not only obliged
to recognize the standpoint of feeling; it must also
acknowledge the intermediate standpoint of phantasy.
Here, however, comes the great difficulty: phantasy for
the most part is a product of the unconscious. It doubt-
less includes conscious elements, but none the less it is an
especial characteristic of phantasy that it is essentially
involuntary and stands inherently opposed to conscious
70
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
contents. It has this quality in common with the dream,
though the latter has of course strangeness and spontaneity
in a much higher degree.
The relation of the individual to his phantasy is very
largely conditioned by his relation to the unconscious in
general, and this in its turn is peculiarly influenced by the
spirit of the age. In inverse ratio to the degree of pre-
vailing rationalism will the individual be more or less
disposed to have dealings with the unconscious and its
products. The Christian sphere, like every completed
religious form, undoubtedly tends to suppress the un-
conscious in the individual to the fullest limit, thus
paralysing his phantasy activity. In its stead, religion
offers stereotyped symbolical ideas which replace the
individual unconscious. The symbolical presentations of
all religions are stages of unconscious processes in a
typical and universally binding form. Religious teaching
gives, as it were, conclusive information concerning the
* Last Things ’ and the * other world ’ of human conscious-
ness. Wherever we can observe a religion at its birth,
we see how even the figures of his doctrine flow into
the founder as revelations, ue. as concretizations of his
unconscious phantasy. The forms arising out of his
unconscious are interpreted as universally valid and thus
in a measure replace the individual phantasies of others.
The evangelist Matthew has preserved for us a fragment
of this process from the life of Christ : in the story of the
Temptations we see how the idea of kingship emerges
from the Founder’s unconscious in the form of the devil
who offers him power over the kingdoms of the earth. Had
Christ misunderstood the phantasy and taken it concretely,
there would have been one madman the more in the world.
But he refused the concretised of his phantasy and entered
the world as a King, unto whom the Kingdoms of Heaven
are subject He was therefore no paranoiac, as indeed the
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 71
result also proved. The views advanced from time to
time from the psychiatric side concerning the morbidity
of Christ’s psychology are nothing but ludicrous rationalistic
twaddle, altogether remote from any sort of comprehension
of the meaning of such processes in the history of man.
The forms in which Christ presented the content of
his unconscious to the world became accepted and inter-
preted as universally binding. Therewith all individual
phantasy lapsed ; it became not only invalid and worthless
but it was actually persecuted as heretical, as the fate of
the Gnostic movement, and of all later heresies testifies.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks in a similar sense when he
says {Jeremiah , xxiii) :
16. “ Thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that
prophesy unto you :
They make you vain :
They speak- a vision of their own hear*.
And not out of the mouth of the Lord.
26. I have heard what the prophets said,
That prophesy lies in My name, saying : —
* I have dreamed, I have dreamed.’
26. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that
prophesy lies ?
Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart ;
27. ‘ Which think to cause My people to forget My name
By their dreams which they tell every man to his
neighbour.
As their fathers have forgotten My name through Baal.
28. The prophet that hath a dream.
Let him tell a dream ;
And he that hath My word,
Let him speak My word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat ? saith the Lord/ ”
We see also in early Christianity how, for example,
the Bishops zealously strove to root out the efficacy of
the individual unconscious among the monks. The Arch-
1* PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in his biography of
St Anthony offers us a particularly valuable insight into
this activity \ In this document he describes, by way of
instruction to his monks, the apparitions and visions, the
perils of the soul, which befall those that pray and fast
in solitude. He warns them how cleverly the devil dis-
guises himself in order to bring saintly men to their fall.
The devil is, of course, the voice of the anchorite’s own
unconscious, which revolts against the violent suppression
of the individual nature. I give a group of exact quota-
tions from this rather inaccessible book. Very clearly
they show how the unconscious was systematically sup-
pressed and depreciated.
“ There is a time when we see no man and yet the sound
of the working of the devils is heard by us, and it is like the
singing of a song in a loud voice; and there are times when
the words of the Scriptures are heard by us, just as if a living
man were repeating them, and they are exactly like the words
which we should hear if a man were reading the Book. And it
also happeneth that they (the devils) rouse us up to the night
prayer, and incite us to stand upon our feet, and they make us
to see also the similitudes of monks and the forms of those who
mourn (i.e. the anchorites) ; and they draw nigh unto us as if
they had come from a long journey, that they may make lax the
understanding of those who are feeble of soul, and they begin to
utter words like unto these : * Are we condemned throughout
all creation to love places of desolation. Were we not able when
we came to our houses, to fear God and to do fair deeds ? ' And
when they are unable to work their will by means of a scheme
of this kind, they cease from this kind of deceit and turn unto
another and say : 1 How is it possible for thee to live ? For
thou hast sinned and committed iniquity in many things. Think-
est thou, that the Spirit hath not revealed unto me what hath
been done by thee, or that I know not that thou hast done such
and such a thing ? ' If therefore a simple brother hear these
things, and feel within himself that he hath done evil as the
Evil One hath said, and he be not acquainted with his craftiness,
his mind will be troubled straightway, and he shall fall into despair
and turn backwards.
1 Lady Meux* Manuscript , no. 6 : The Book of Paradise , by Pal-
ladia, Hieronymus, etc., edited by E. A. Wallis Budge (London 1904)
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
73
It is then, O my beloved, unnecessary for us to be terrified
at these things, and we have need to fear only when the devils
multiply the speaking of the things which are true and then
we must rebuke them severely . . . Therefore let us be on
our guard . . . We must not then even appear to incline our
hearing to their words, even though they be words of truth
which they utter ; for it would be a disgrace unto us that those
who have rebelled against God should become our teachers.
And let us, O my brethren, arm ourselves with the armour of
righteousness, and let us put on the helmet of ‘redemption, and
in the time of contending let us shoot out from a believing mind
spiritual arrows as from a bow which is stretched. For they
(the devils) are nothing at all, and even if they were, their strength
hath in it nothing which would enable it to resist the might of
the Cross."
St Anthony relates :
" Once there appeared unto me a devil of an exceedingly
haughty and insolent appearance, and he stood up before me with
the tumultuous noise of many people, and he dared to say unto me :
4 I, even I, am the power of God', and 4 1, even I, am the Lord
of the worlds/ And he said unto me : 4 What dost thou wish
me to give thee ? Ask, and thou shalt receive/ Then I blew
a puff of wind at him, and I rebuked him in the name of Christ. . . .
And on another occasion, when I was fasting, the crafty
one appeared to me in the form of a brother monk carrying
bread, and he began to speak unto me words of counsel, saying
4 Rise up, and stay thy heart with bread and water, and rest
a little from thine excessive labours, for thou art a man, and
howsoever greatly thou mayest be exalted thou art clothed with
a mortal body and thou shouldest fear sickness and tribulations/
Then I regarded his words, and I held my peace and refrained
from giving an answer. And I bowed myself down in quietness,
and I began to make supplicatibns in prayer, and I said : 4 O
Lord, make Thou an end of him, even as Thou hast been wont
to do him away at all times * ; and as I concluded my words he
came to an end and vanished like dust, and went forth from the
door like smoke.
Now on one occasion Satan approached the house one night
and knocked at the door, and I went out to see who was knocking,
and I lifted up mine eyes and saw the form of an exceedingly
tall and strong man ; and, having asked him 4 Who art thou ?
he answered and said unto me : 4 1 am Satan/ And after this
I said unto him : 1 What seekest thou ? 1 and he answered unto
me : 4 Why do the monks and the anchorites, and the other
Christians revile me, and why do they at all times heap curses
upon me ? ' And having clasped my head firmly in wonder
74
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
at his mad folly, I said unto him : * Wherefore dost thou give
them trouble ? * Then he answered and said unto me : * It is
not I who trouble them, but it is they who trouble themselves.
For there happened to me on a certain occasion that which did
happen to me, and had I not cried out to them that I was the
Enemy, his slaughters would have come to an end for ever
I have therefore no place to dwell in, and not one glittering sword,
and not even people who are really subject unto me, for those
who are in service to me hold me wholly in contempt ; and more-
over, I have to keep them in fetters, for they do not cleave to me
because they esteem it right to do so, and they are ever ready
to escape from me in every place. The Christians have filled the
whole world, and behold, even the desert is filled full with their
monasteries and habitations. Let them then take good heed to
themselves when they heap abuse upon me/
Then, wondering at the grace of our Lord, I said unto him :
' How doth it happen that whilst thou hast been a liar on every
other occasion, at this present the truth is spoken by thee ?
And how is it that thou speakest the truth now when thou art
wont to utter lies ? It is indeed true that when Christ came
into this world, thou wast brought down to the lowest depths,
and that the root of thine error was plucked up from the earth/
And when Satan heard the name of Christ, his form vanished
and his words came to an end/’
These quotations show how, with the aid of the
universal belief, the unconscious of the individual was
rejected notwithstanding the fact that it transparently
spoke the truth. There are in the history of the mind
especial reasons for this rejection. It does not behove
us at this point to elucidate these reasons further. We
must content ourselves with the actual fact that it was
suppressed. Speaking psychologically, this suppression
consists in a withdrawal of libido (psychic energy). The
libido thus acquired, promotes the synthesis and develop-
ment of the conscious attitude, whereby a new conception
of the world is gradually built up. The undoubted advan-
tages gained by this process naturally consolidate this
attitude. It is, therefore, not surprising that the psy-
chology of our time is characterized by a prevailingly
unfavourable attitude towards the unconscious.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 75
It is not only intelligible, but absolutely necessary,
that all sciences have excluded both the standpoints of
feeling and of phantasy. They are sciences for that very
reason. But how does it stand with psychology? If it
is to be regarded as a science, it must do the same. But
will it then do justice to its material? Every science
ultimately seeks to formulate and express its material in
abstractions ; thus psychology could, and indeed does,
lay hold of the processes of feeling, sensation, and phantasy
in the form of intellectual abstractions. This treatment
certainly establishes the right of the intellectual-abstract
standpoint, but not the claims of other quite possible
psychological points of view. These other possible stand-
points can obtain only a bare mention in a scientific
psychology; they cannot emerge as the independent
principles of a science. Science, under all circumstances,
is an affair of the intellect, and the other psychological
functions are submitted to it in the form of objects. The
intellect is sovereign of the scientific realm. But it is
another matter when science steps across into the realm
of practical application. The intellect, which was formerly
king, is now merely a resource, a scientifically perfected
instrument it is true, but still only an implement — no more
the aim itself, but merely a condition. The intellect, and
with it science, is now placed at the service of creative
power and purpose. Yet this is still “ psychology ” although
no longer science : it is a psychology in a wider meaning
of the word, a psychological activity ot a creative nature,
in which creative phantasy is given priority. Instead of
using the term “ creative phantasy”, it would be just as
true to say that in a practical psychology of this kind the
leading r61e is given to life, for on the one hand, it is
undoubtedly phantasy, procreating and productive, which
uses science as a resource, but on the other, it is the
manifold demands of external reality which prompt the
76 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
activity of creative phantasy. Science as an end in itself
is assuredly a high ideal, but its accomplishment brings
about as many “ ends in themselves ” as there are sciences
and arts. Naturally this leads to a high differentiation
and specialization of the particular functions concerned,
but it also leads to their aloofness from ’ the world and
from life, and an inevitable multiplication of specialized
terrains, which gradually lose all connection with each
other. The result of this is an impoverishment and
stagnation that is not merely confined to the specialized
terrains, but also invades the psyche of the man, who is
thus differentiated up or reduced down to the specialist
level. By this token must science prove her value to life ;
it is not enough that she be mistress — she must also be
the maid. By so doing she in no way dishonours herself.
Although science has already led us to recognize the
disproportions and disorders of the psyche, thus deserving
our profound respect for her intrinsic intellectual gifts, it
is nevertheless a grave mistake to concede her an absolute
aim which would incapacitate her for her metier as an
instrument of life. For when we approach the province
of actual living with the intellect and its science, we
realize at once we are in a confined space that shuts us
out from other, equally real provinces of life. We are,
therefore, compelled to acknowledge the universality of
our ideal as a limitation, and to look around us for a
spiritus rector which from the standpoint and claims of
a complete life, can offer us a greater guarantee of psycho-
logical universality than the intellect alone can compass.
When Faust exclaims “feeling is everything”, he is
expressing merely the antithesis to the intellect, and there-
fore only reaches the other extreme ; he does not achieve
that totality of life and of his own psyche in which feeling
and thought are joined in a third and higher principle.
This higher third, as I have already indicated, can be
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 77
understood either as a practical goal or as the phantasy
which creates the goal. This aim of totality can be
recognized neither by the science, whose end is in itself,
nor by feeling, which lacks the faculty of vision belonging
to thought. The one must lend itself as auxiliary to the
other, yet the contrast between them is so great that we
need a bridge. This bridge is already given us in creative
phantasy. It is not bom of either, for it is the mother of
both — nay, further, it is pregnant with the child, that final
aim which reconciles the opposites. If psychology remains
only a science, we do not reach life — we merely serve the
absolute aim of science. It leads us, certainly, to a know-
ledge of the actual state of affairs, but it always resists
every other aim but its own. The intellect remains im-
prisoned in itself just so long as it does not willingly
sacrifice its supremacy through its recognition of the value
of other aims. It recoils from the step which takes it out
of itself, and which denies its universal validity; since
from the standpoint of intellect everything else is nothing
but phantasy. But what great thing ever came into existence
that was not first phantasy ? Just in so far as the intellect
rigidly adheres to the absolute aim of science is it insulated
from the springs of life. It interprets phantasy as nothing
but a wish-dream, wherein is expressed that depreciation
of phantasy which for science is both welcome and necessary.
It is inevitable that science should be regarded as an
absolute aim so long as the development of science is the
sole question at issue. But this at once becomes an evil
when it is a question of life itself demanding development
Thus it was an historical necessity in the Christian process
of culture that unfettered phantasy activity should be kept
under ; and, similarly, though for different reasons, it was
also a necessity that phantasy should be suppressed in our
age of natural science. It must not be forgotten that
creative phantasy, if not restrained within just bounds, can
78 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
also degenerate into a most pernicious luxuriance. But
these bounds are never those artificial limitations set by
the intellect or by reasonable feeling ; they are boundaries
governed by necessity and incontestable reality.
The tasks of every age differ, and it is only in retrospect
that we can discern with certainty what had to be and
what should not have been. In the momentary present
the conflict of convictions always predominates, for “ war
is the father of all History alone decides. Truth is not
eternal — it is a programme. The more u eternal ” a truth,
the more is it lifeless and worthless; it tells us nothing
more, because it is self-evident.
How phantasy is assessed by psychology, so long as
this remains merely a science, is beautifully exemplified
in the well-known views of Freud and of Adler. The
Freudian interpretation reduces it to causal, primitive,
instinctive processes. Adler’s conception reduces it to
the final, elementary aims of the self. The former is an
instinctive psychology, the latter an ego -psychology.
Instinct is an impersonal biological phenomenon. A
psychology which is founded upon instinct must by its
nature neglect the ego, since the ego owes its existence to
the principium individuation is, i.§. to individual differ-
entiation whose sporadic and individual character at
once removes it from the category of general biological
phenomena. Although general biological instinct-forces
make the moulding of personality possible, individuality
is nevertheless essentially different from general instincts ;
indeed, it stands in the most direct opposition to them,
just as the individual is as a personality always distinct
from the collective. Its essence consists precisely in this
distinction. What every ego-psychology must therefore
exclude and ignore is just the collective element that is
essential to instinct-psychology, for it is describing that
very ego-process which is differentiated from collective
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 79
instincts. The characteristic animosity between the
representatives of the two standpoints arises from the fact
that either standpoint necessarily involves a depreciation
and lowering of the other. For so long as the radical
difference between instinct and ego-psychology is not
realized, either side must naturally hold its respective
theory to be universally valid. This does not mean to say
that instinct-psychology, for example, could not put up a
theory of the ego-process. It can do so very ably, but in
a form and manner which to the ego-psychologist looks
too much like the negative of his theory. Hence we find
that with Freud the “ ego-instincts ” do indeed occasionally
emerge, but in the main they support a very modest exist-
ence. With Adler, on the other hand, it would seem as
though sexuality were the merest vehicle, which in one
way or another serves the elementary aims of power. The
Adlerian principle is the safe-guarding of personal power,
which is superimposed upon the general instincts. With
Freud it is instinct that makes the ego serve its purposes,
so that the ego appears as a mere function of instinct.
Within both types the scientific tendency prevails to
reduce everything to its own principle ; from which their
deductions again proceed. With phantasies this operation
is accomplished with particular ease; since these, unlike
the functions of consciousness, which are adapted to reality
and have therefore an objectively orientated character,
express both instinctive as well as ego-tendencies. It is
not difficult for the man who adopts the standpoint of
instinct to discover in them the “ wish-fulfilment ”, the
“ infantile wish ”, and “ repressed sexuality ”. But the man
who judges from the standpoint of the ego can just as
easily discover those elementary aims concerned with the
safeguarding and differentiation of the ego, since phantasies
are intermediary products between the ego and the general
instinct They accordingly contain elements of both sides.
80 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
Interpretation from either side is always, therefore, some-
what forced and arbitrary, because one character is always
suppressed. Nevertheless, a demonstrable truth does on
the whole appear ; but it is only a partial truth, which can
make no claim to general validity. Its validity extends
just so far as the range of its principle. But in the
province of other principles it is invalid. The Freudian
psychology is characterized by one central idea, namely the
repression of incompatible wish-tendencies. Man appears
as a bundle of wishes which are only partially adaptable
to the object. His neurotic difficulties consist in the fact
that milieu-influences, educational and objective conditions,
are a considerable check upon a free expression of instinct.
Influences are derived from father and mother, either
morally hindering or infantile, which tend to produce
fixations that compromise later life. The original instinc-
tive constitution is an unalterable quantity which suffers
disturbing modifications mainly through objective influ-
ences ; hence the most untrammelled possible expression
of instinct towards the suitably chosen object would appear
to be the needful remedy. Conversely, Adler’s psychology
is characterized by the central idea of ego-superiority. The
individual appears pre-eminently as an ego-point which
must under no circumstances be subjected to the object.
While with Freud the craving for the object, the fixation
to the object, and the impossible nature of certain desires
towards the object play an important rdle, with Adler
everything aims at the superiority of the subject Freud’s
repression of instinct towards the object becomes with
. Adler the safe-guarding of the subject. With him the
healing remedy is the removal of the isolating safe-guard ;
with Freud it is the removal of the repression that renders
the object inaccessible. Hence with Freud the basic
formula is sexuality, which expresses the strongest relation
between subject and object ; with Adler it is that power of
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 81
the subject which most effectively ensures him against the
object, and gives to the subject an unassailable isolation
which amputates every relation. Freud would vouchsafe
the instincts an unfettered excursion towards their objects.
But Adler would break through the inimical spell of the
object, in order to deliver the ego from suffocation in its
own defensive armour. The former view must therefore
be essentially extraverted, while the latter is introverted.
The extraverted theory holds good for the extraverted
type, while the introverted theory is valid only for the
introverted type. In so far as the pure type is a quite
one-sided product of development, it is also necessarily
unbalanced. Over-emphasis upon the one function is
synonymous with repression of the other.
Psycho-analysis fails to resolve this repression just in
so far as the particular method applied is orientated
according to the theory of its own type. Thus the extra-
vert, in accordance with his theory, will reduce his
phantasies, as they emerge from the unconscious, to their
instinct content. But the introvert will reduce them to
his power-tendency. The gain accruing from such analysis
goes to the already existing predominance. This kind of
analysis, therefore, merely intensifies the already existing
type, and by such means no mutual understanding or
mediation between the types is made possible. On the
contrary, the gap is widened, both without and within.
An inner dissociation arises, because fragments of other
functions, occasionally arising to the surface in unconscious
phantasies (dreams, etc.) are depreciated and again repressed.
On these grounds a certain critic was in a measure justified
when he described Freud’s as a neurotic theory ; but the
truth of the statement cannot justify a certain malevolence
in expression which only serves to absolve one from the
duty of serious concentration upon the problems raised.
The standpoints both of Freud and of Adler are equally
D
84 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
one-sided and are, therefore, characteristic of only one
type.
Both theories reject the principle of imagination, since
they reduce phantasies and treat them as a merely
semiotic 1 expression. But in reality phantasies mean
more than that, for they represent also the other mechan-
ism. Thus with the introverted type they represent
repressed extraversion, and with the extraverted repressed
introversion. But the repressed function is unconscious,
hence, undeveloped, embryonic, and archaic. In this
condition it is not to be reconciled with the higher niveau
of the conscious function. The inacceptable nature of
phantasy is principally derived from this peculiarity of the
unrecognised function-root.
Imagination, for everyone to whom adaptation to ex-
ternal reality is the leading principle, is for these reasons
something objectionable and useless. And yet we know
that every good idea and all creative work is the offspring
of the imagination, and has its source in what one is
pleased to term infantile phantasy. It is not the artist
alone, but every creative individual whatsoever who owes
all that is greatest in his life to phantasy. The dynamic
principle of phantasy is 'playj which belongs also to the
child, and as such it appears to be inconsistent with the
principle of serious work. But without this playing with
phantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth.
The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalcul-
able. It is therefore short-sighted to treat phantasy, on
account of its daring or inacceptable character, as of small
account It must not be forgotten that it is just in the
imagination that the most valuable promise of a man may
l I say " semiotic ** in contradistinction to '* symbolic What
Freud terms symbols are no more than signs for elementary instinctive
processes. But a symbol is the best possible expression for an actual
matter of fact, which nevertheless cannot be expressed except by a
more or less dose analogy.
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
83
lie. I say may advisedly, because on the other hand
phantasies are also valueless, since in the form of raw
material they possess no sort of realizable worth. In order
to unearth the valuable treasure they contain, a develop-
ment is needed. But this development is not achieved
by a simple analysis of the phantasy material ; a synthetic
treatment is also needed by means of a constructive
method 1 .
It remains an open question whether the opposition
between the two standpoints can ever be satisfactorily
adjusted intellectually. Although in one sense Abelard’s
attempt must be profoundly respected, yet practically
no consequences worth mentioning have matured from it ;
for he was able to establish no mediatory psychological
function beyond conceptualism or sermonism, which is
merely a revised edition, altogether one-sided and intel-
lectual, of the ancient Logos conception. The Logos, as
a mediator, had of course this advantage over the sermo,
inasmuch as in His 2 human manifestation He also did
justice to non-intellectual aspirations.
I cannot, however, rid myself of the impression that
Abelard’s brilliant mind, which so fully grasped the great
Yea and Nay, would never have remained satisfied with
his paradoxical conceptualism, thus renouncing all claim
to creative effort, if the impelling force of passion had not
been lost to him through the tragedy of fate. In con-
firmation of this idea we need only compare conceptualism
vrlh the way in which the great Chinese philosophers
Lao-Tse and Tschuang-Tse, as also the poet Schiller, con-
fronted this problem.
1 Cl. Jung, Collected Papers : Content of the Psychoses , Idem,
Psychology of Unconscious Processes.
t Logos appearing in human form as Christ the Son of God.
8 4
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
6. The Holy Communion Controversy between
Luther and Zwingli
Of the later antagonisms which stirred men’s minds
Protestantism and the Reformation movement should really
receive our first consideration. Only this phenomenon
is of such complexity that it must first be resolved into
many separate psychological processes before it can become
an object for analytical elucidation. But that lies outside
my province. I must therefore content myself by selecting
a single case from that great arena, namely the Holy
Communion controversy between Luther and Zwingli.
The transubstantiation dogma, already mentioned, was
sanctioned by the Lateran Council of 1215, and from that
time formed an established article of faith ; in which form
Luther himself grew up. Although the notion that a
ceremony and its concrete practice can have an objective
redeeming value is really quite unevangelical, since the
evangelical movement was actually directed against
Catholic institutions, Luther was nevertheless unable to
free himself from the immediately effective sensuous
impression in the taking of bread and wine. He perceived
in it not merely a token, but the actual sensuous reality
with its contingent and immediate experience; these
were for him an indispensable religious necessity. He
therefore claimed the actual presence of the body and
blood of Christ in the Communion. “In and beneath”
bread and wine he received the body and the blood of
Christ. For him the religious meaning of the immediate
objective experience was so great that his imagination
was spell-bound by the concretism of the material presence
of the sacred body. All his attempts at explanation are,
therefore, under the spell of this fact : the body of Christ
Is present, albeit * non-spatially According to the so-
called doctrine of consubstantiation the actual substance
PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY 85
of the sacred body was also really present beside the
substance of the bread and wine. The ubiquity of Christ’s
body, which this assumption postulated, an idea involving
considerable distress to human intelligence, was indeed
substituted by the concept of volipresence, which means
that God is everywhere present, where He wills to be.
But Luther, untroubled by all these difficulties, held un-
flinchingly to the immediate experience of the sensuous
impression and preferred to assuage all the scruples of
human reason with explanations which were either absurd
or at the best quite unsatisfying.
It is hardly credible that it was merely the power of
tradition which determined Luther to cling to this dogma,
for he assuredly gave abundant proof of his ability to
throw aside traditional forms of belief. Indeed we should
not go far wrong in assuming that it was rather the actual
contact with the ‘real’ and material in the Communion,
and the feeling-significance of this contact for Luther him-
self, that prevailed over the evangelical principle, which
maintained that the word was the sole vehicle of grace
and not the ceremony. With Luther the word certainly
had redeeming power, but the partaking of the Communion
was also a transmitter of grace. This, I repeat, must
have been only an apparent concession to the institutions
of the Catholic Church ; for in reality it was the acknow-
ledgment, demanded by Luther’s psychology, of the fact
of feeling, grounded upon the immediate sense-experience.
As against the Lutheran standpoint Zwingli represented
the purely symbolic conception. What really concerned
him was a ‘ spiritual ’ partaking of the body and blood of
Christ. This standpoint has the character of reason ; it
is a conceptual attitude to the ceremony. It has the
merit that it offers no violence to the evangelical principle,
and at the same time it avoids all hypotheses that run
counter to reason. This conception, however, does little
86 PROBLEM OF TYPES IN HISTORY
justice to the thing which Luther wished to preserve,
namely the reality of the sense-impression and its peculiar
feeling-value. Zwingli, it is true, also administered the
Communion, and with Luther also partook of bread and
wine — nevertheless his conception contained no formula
which could have adequately rendered the unique sensa-
tional and feeling value of the object. Luther gave a
formula for this, but it was opposed to reason and the
evangelical principle. To the standpoint of sensation and
feeling this matters little, and indeed rightly, for the idea,
the ‘ principle ’, is just as little concerned about the sensa-
tion of the object. Both points of view are in the last
resort mutually exclusive.
The Lutheran formulation favours the extraverted con-
ception of things, while Zwingli has the conceptual stand-
point. Although Zwingli’s formula does no violence to
feeling and sensation, but merely gives a conceptual for-
mulation, and appears furthermore to have left room for
the efficacy of the object, yet it seems as though the
extraverted standpoint is not content with an open space,
but demands also a formulation in which the conceptual
follows the sensuous value, exactly as the conceptual for-
mulation requires the subservience of feeling and sensation.
At this point, with the consciousness of having given
merely a statement of the problem, I close this chapter
on the principle of types in the history of classic and
medieval thought. I am not sufficiently competent to be
able to treat so difficult and voluminous a problem in any
way exhaustively. If I have been successful in conveying
to the reader an' impression of the existence of typical
differences of standpoint, my purpose has been achieved.
I need scarcely add that I am aware that none of the
material here touched upon has been conclusively dealt
with. I must bequeath this task to those who command
a fuller knowledge of this province than myself.
CHAPTER II
SCHILLER'S IDEAS UPON THE TYPE PROBLEM
1. Letters on the iBsthetic Education of Man
(a) The superior and the inferior functions
So far as my somewhat limited range extends, Friedrich
Schiller seems to have been the first to have made any con-
siderable attempt at a conscious discrimination of typical
attitudes, and to have developed a fairly complete pre-
sentation of their singularities. This important endeavour
to represent the two mechanisms in question, and at the
same time to discover a possibility of their reconciliation,
is to be found in his treatise first published in 1795 : XJber
die dsthetische Erziehung des Menschen 1 . The paper con-
sists of a number of letters which Schiller addressed to
the Duke of Holstein- Augustenburg.
Schiller’s essay, by the depth of its thought, the psycho-
logical penetration of its material, and its wide vision of
the possibility of a psychological solution of the conflict,
prompts me to a somewhat extensive presentation and
appreciation of his ideas, for never yet has it fallen to their
lot to be treated in such a connection.
The merit due to Schiller from our psychological view-
point, as will become clear in our further discussion, is by
no means inconsiderable ; for he gives us developed points-
of-view which we, as psychologists, are just beginning to
appreciate. My responsibility will, of course, not be light,
1 Cotta’sche Ausgabe, 1826, Bd. xviii. The English translation
is in many ways unsatisfactory and even incorrect: the reference
therefore apre to the German edition.
88 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
for it may well happen that I shall be accused of giving
a construction to Schiller’s ideas which his actual words
do not warrant For, although I shall take considerable
pains, at every essential point, to quote the actual words
of the author, yet it may not be altogether possible to
introduce his ideas in the connection I intend to establish
here without giving them certain interpretations or con-
structions. I am obliged not to overlook this possibility,
but, on the other hand, we must bear in mind the fact
that Schiller himself belongs to a definite type, and is
therefore constrained, even in spite of himself, to deliver
a one-sided characterization.
The limitation of our conceptions and cognition
becomes nowhere so apparent as in psychological
presentations, where it is almost impossible for us to
trace any other picture than that whose main outlines
are already marked out in our own psyche. From
various characteristics I conclude that Schiller belongs
to the introverted type, while Goethe inclines more to the
extraverted side.
We can easily trace Schiller’s own image in his
description of the idealistic type. An inevitable limitation
is imposed upon his formulation through this identification,
a fact which must never be lost sight of in our effort to
gain a fuller understanding. This limitation is to be
ascribed to the fact that the one mechanism is presented
by Schiller in richer outline than the other, for the latter
is still imperfectly developed in the introvert, and just
because of its imperfect development it must necessarily
have certain inferior characters clinging to it. In such
cases the presentation of the author demands our criticism
and correction. It is clear, too, that this limitation of
Schiller’s has also prompted him to use a terminology
which fails in general applicability. As an introvert
Schiller has a better relation to ideas than to things of
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
89
the world. The relation to ideas can be relatively more
emotional or reflective according to whether the individual
belongs more to the feeling or the thinking type. At
this point I would request the reader, who perhaps may
have been led by my earlier publications to identify
feeling with extraversion and thinking with introversion,
to be good enough to bear in mind the definitions
furnished in the last chapter. With the introverted and
extraverted types I have there distinguished two general
classes of men, which can be further sub-divided into
function-types, e.g thinking, feeling, sensational, and
intuitive. Hence an introvert can be a thinking or a
feeling type, since feeling as well as thinking can come
under the supremacy of the idea, just as both in given
cases can be ruled by the object
If then I consider that Schiller, both in his nature and
particularly in his characteristic opposition to Goethe,
corresponds with the introvert, the question next arises
as to which subdivision he belongs. This question is
hard to answer. Without doubt the factor of intuition
plays a considerable rdle with him ; we might on this
account, or if we were regarding him exclusively as a
poet, count him as an intuitive type. But in the fiber die
dsthet . Erziehung it is undoubtedly Schiller the thinker
who confronts us. Not only from these, but also from
his own repeated admissions, we know how strong the
reflective element was in Schiller. Consequently we must
shift his intuitiveness over towards the side of thinking,
so that we may also approach him from this other angle,
i.e. from our understanding of the psychological view-
point of an introverted thinking type. It will, I hope, be
sufficiently proved hereafter that this conception coincides
with reality, for there are not a few passages in Schiller’s
writings that speak distinctly in its favour. I would,
therefore, request the reader to bear in mind that the
9« SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
hypothesis I have just outlined underlies my whole
argument This is, in my opinion, necessary, because
Schiller handles the problem from the angle of his own
inner experience. In view of the fact that another
psychology, i.e. another type, would have apprehended
the problem in quite another form, the highly general
formulation which Schiller gives to it might be regarded
in the nature of an encroachment, or as an ill-considered
generalization. But such a judgment would be incorrect,
since there is actually a large class of men for whom the
problem of the differentiated functions is precisely the
same as it was for Schiller. If, therefore, in the ensuing
argument I occasionally emphasize Schiller’s one-sided-
ness and subjectivity, I do not wish to detract from the
importance and validity of the problem he has raised,
but rather to make room for other formulations. Such
criticisms as I may occasionally offer, therefore, are in-
tended rather as a transcription into a form of expression,
which disembarrasses Schiller’s formulation of its sub-
jective limitations. My argument, nevertheless, clings
very closely to Schiller’s, since it is concerned much less
with the general question of introversion and extraversion
— which in Chapter I exclusively engaged our attention —
than with the typical conflict of the introverted thinking
type.
Schiller concerns himself at the very outset with the
question of the cause and origin of the bifurcation of the
two mechanisms. With sure instinct he hits upon the
differentiation of the individual as the basic motive. “ It
was culture itself, which dealt this wound to the modern
man” (p. 22). This one sentence at once shows Schiller’s
embracing understanding of our problem. The breaking
up of the harmonious co-operation of the psychic forces
that exists in instinctive life is like an ever open and never
healing wound, a veritable Amfortas’ wound ; since the
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 91
differentiation of one function among several inevitably
leads to overgrowth of the one and to neglect and crippling
of the rest
“ I do not ignore the advantages”, says Schiller, “ which
the present generation, regarded as a whole, and measured
by reason, may boast over what was best in the bygone
world ; but it must enter the contest as a compact phalanx
and measure itself as whole against whole. What in-
dividual modern could enter the lists, man against man,
and contest the prize of manhood with an individual
Athenian? Whence then arises this unfavourable in-
dividual comparison in the face of every advantage from
the standpoint of the race ? ” (p. 22).
Schiller places the responsibility for this decline of
the modem individual upon culture, i.e . upon the differen-
tiation of functions. He next points out how, in art and
scholarship, the intuitive and the speculative minds have
become estranged, and how each has zealously excluded
the other from its respective field of application.
“ And with the sphere into which man coniines his opera-
tion, he has also made unto himself a ruler; which fact not
infrequently results in the suppression of his other faculties.
Whereas, in the case of the former, the luxuriating power of
imagination makes a wilderness of the laborious plantations
of the mind, in the latter the spirit of abstraction consumes
the fire that should have warmed the heart and kindled phan-
tasy” (p. 23).
And further :
“ When the commonwealth makes the office or function the
measure of the man, when of its citizens it does homage only
to memory in one, to a tabulating intelligence in another, and
to a mechanical capacity in a third ; when here, regardless of
character, it urges only towards knowledge, while there it encour-
ages a spirit of order and law-abiding behaviour with the pro-
foundest intellectual obscurantism — when, at the same time, it
wishes these single accomplishments of the subject to be carried
to just as great an intensity as it absolves him of extensity —
is it to be wondered at that the remaining faculties of the mind
are neglected, in order to bestow every care upon the special
one which it honours and rewards ? ”
92 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
In these thoughts of Schiller there lies much weight
It is understandable that Schiller’s age, whose imperfect
knowledge of the Grecian world appraised the man of
Greece by the greatness of his bequeathed works, should
thereby over-estimate him beyond all bounds, inasmuch as
the peculiar beauty of Grecian art owed its existence in no
small measure to its contrast with the milieu from which
it arose. The advantage of the Greek consisted in the
fact that he was less differentiated than the modern, if
indeed one is disposed to regard that as an advantage ; for
the disadvantage of such a condition must at least be
equally obvious. The differentiation of functions is
assuredly no product of human caprice; its origin, like
that of everything in nature, was necessity. Could one
of these modem admirers of the Grecian heaven and
Arcadian bliss have visited the earth as an Attic helot, he
might well have surveyed the beauties of the land of
Greece with rather different eyes. Even were it the fact
that the primitive conditions of the fifth century before
Christ yielded the individual a greater possibility for an
all-round unfolding of his qualities and capacities, this
nevertheless was possible only because thousands of his
fellow-men were admittedly cramped and crippled in
wretched circumstances. A high level of individual
culture was undoubtedly reached by certain figures, but a
collective culture was quite unknown to the ancient world.
This achievement was reserved for Christianity. Hence it
comes about that, as a mass, the moderns can not only
rival the Greeks, but by every standard of collective
culture they easily surpass them. Schiller, on the other
hand, is perfectly right in his contention that our individual
has not kept pace with our collective culture ; and it has
certainly not improved during the hundred and twenty
years that have passed since Schiller wrote — rather the
reverse ; for, if we had not wandered even farther into
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 93
the collective atmosphere to the prejudice of individual
development, the violent reactions which took shape in
the mind of a S timer or a Nietzsche would scarcely have
been required. Still to-day, therefore, Schiller's words
must remain both timely and valid.
Like the ancients, who with a view to individual
development catered for the claims of an upper class by
an almost total suppression of the great majority of the
common people (helots and slaves), the subsequent
Christian world reached a condition of collective culture
through an identical process, albeit translated as far as
possible into the individual sphere (or, raised to the sub-
jective level, as we prefer to express it). While the value
of the individual was proclaimed to be an imperishable
soul by the Christian dogma, it became no longer possible
for the inferior majority of the people to be suppressed for
the freedom of a superior minority, but now the superior
function was preferred over the inferior functions in the
individual . In this way the chief importance was
transferred to the one valued function, to the prejudice
of all the rest, Psychologically this meant that the
external form of society in antique civilization was trans-
lated into the subject, whereby in individual psycho-
logy, an inner condition was produced which had been
external in the older civilization, namely, a dominating,
preferred function, which became developed and differenti-
ated at the expense of an inferior majority. By means
of this psychological process a collective culture gradually
came into existence, in which “ les droits de Vhomme ”
certainly had an immeasurably greater guarantee than
with the ancients. But it had this disadvantage, that it
depended upon a subjective slave-culture, i.e. upon a
transfer of the antique majority enslavement into the
psychological sphere, whereby collective culture was un-
doubtedly enhanced, while individual culture depreciated.
94
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
Just as the enslavement of the mass was the open wound
of the antique world, the enslavement of the inferior
function is an ever-bleeding wound in the soul of man to-
day. “ One-sidedness in the exercise of his powers leads
in the individual infallibly to error, but in the race to
truth” (p. 29) says Schiller. The favouritism of the
superior function is just as serviceable to society as it is
prejudicial to the individuality. This prejudicial effect has
reached such a pitch that the great organizations of our
present day civilization actually strive for the complete
disintegration of the individual, since their very existence
depends upon a mechanical application of the preferred
individual functions of men. It is not man that counts,*
but his one differentiated function. Man no longer appears
as man in collective civilization : he is merely represented
by a function — nay, further, he is even exclusively identified «
with this function and denies any responsible membership
to the other inferior functions. Thus the modern in-
dividual sinks to the level of a mere function, because this
it is that represents a collective value and alone affords a
possibility of livelihood. But, as Schiller clearly discerns,
differentiation of function could have come about in no
other way : “ There was no other means to develop man’s
manifold capacities than to set them one against another.
This antagonism of human qualities is the great instrument
of culture ; it is only the instrument, however, for so long
as it endures man is only upon the way to culture” (p. 28).
According to this conception the present state of
warring capacities could not yet be a state of culture,
but only a stage on the way. Opinion will, of course,
be divided about this, for by culture one man will under-
stand a state of collective culture, while another will merely
regard this as civilization and will ascribe to culture the
sterner demands of individual development. Schiller is,
of course, mistaken when he exclusively allies himself
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 95
with the second stand -point and contrasts our collective
culture with that of the individual Greek, since he over-
looks the defectiveness of the civilization of that time,
which renders the absolute validity of that culture very
questionable. Hence no culture is ever really complete
that swings towards a one-sided orientation, i.e. when at
one time the cultural ideal is extraverted, the chief value *
being given to the object and the objective relation, while
at another the ideal is introverted when the supreme
importance lies with the individual or s ubject and his
relation to the idea. In the former case, culture takes
on a collective character, while in the latter an individual.
One can easily understand, therefore, that it was through
the operation of the Christian sphere, whose principle is
Christian love (and also through contrast- association with
its counterpart, viz. the violation of the individuality) that-
a collective culture came about in which the individual
threatens to be swallowed up, and individual values are
depreciated on principle. Hence there arose in the time
of the German * classics \ that extraordinary yearning for
the antique which was for them a symbol of individual
culture, and on that account was for the most part very
much overvalued and often grossly idealized. Not a few
attempts were even made to imitate or recapture the spirit
of Greece ; attempts which now-a-days appear to us some-
what silly, but which none the less must be valued as the
forerunners of an individual culture. In the hundred and
twenty years which have passed since Schiller’s time,
conditions in respect to individual culture have become
not better but worse, since individual interest is to-day
engrossed to a far greater extent in collective preoccupa-
tions, and therefore much less leisure is available for the
development of individual culture. Hence we possess
to-day a highly developed collective culture, which in
organization far exceeds anything that ever existed, but
96 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
which for that very reason has become increasingly
injurious to individual culture. There exists a deep gulf
between what a man is and what he represents, i.e. between
the man as an individual and his function-capacity as a
collective being. His function is developed at the
expense of his individuality. Should he excel, he is
merely identical with his collective function ; but should
he not, then, although certainly esteemed as a function
in society, he is as an individuality wholly on the side of
his inferior, undeveloped functions, and therefore simply
barbarous, whereas the former has more fortunately
deceived himself concerning his actually existing bar-
barism. This one-sidedness has undoubtedly yielded not
inconsiderable advantages to society, which has thereby
gained acquisitions that could have been won in no other
way ; as Schiller finely observes : “ Only by focussing
the whole energy of our mind and knitting together our
entire nature in one unique faculty, do we, as it were,
give wings to this individual gift and bring it by artifice
far beyond the limits which nature seems to have laid
down for it ” (p. 29).
But this onesided development must inevitably lead
to a reaction, since the repressed inferior functions cannot
be indefinitely excluded from common life and develop-
ment. The time will come when “the cleavage in the
inner man must again be resolved ”, that the undeveloped
may be granted an opportunity to live.
I have already alluded to the fact that the differentia-
tion of function in civilized development ultimately effects
a dissociation of the basic functions of the psyche, thus
in a certain measure transcending the differentiation of
capacity, and even encroaching upon the province of the
psychological attitude in general, which governs the whole
manner and character of the application of capacity. By
this means culture effects a differentiation of that function
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
97
which already enjoys a better development through
heredity. In one man it is the function of thought, in
another feeling, which is especially accessible to further
development. Thus it happens that the urge of cultural
demands engages the individual’s special concern with
the development of that capacity which Nature has
already intended as his most favourable line. But this
capacity for development does not mean that the function
has an a priori claim to any particular fitness ; it merely
pre-supposes — one might almost say, on the contrary — a
certain functional delicacy, lability, and plasticity. On
this account the highest individual value is not by any
means always to be sought or found in this function ; but
just in so far as it is developed for a collective end, it may
possibly yield the highest collective value. But it may
well be the case, as already observed, that far higher
individual values lie hidden among the neglected functions,
which, although of small importance for the collective life,
are of the very greatest value to individual development.
These, therefore, represent a living value which can endow
the life of the individual with an intensity and beauty that
he will vainly seek in his collective function. The differ-
entiated function certainly procures for him the possibility
of collective existence, but not that satisfaction and joy of
life which the development of individual values alone can
give. Their absence is often sensed as something deeply
lacking, and the severance from them is like an inner
division which, with Schiller, one might compare with a
painful wound.
“ Thus, however much may be gained for the world at large
by the separate development of human capacities, it cannot be
denied that the individuals affected by it suffer under the curse
of this general aim. Athletic bodies are certainly built up by
means of gymnastic exercises, but beauty is won only through
the free and uniform play of the limbs. In the same way the
tension of individual mental powers can produce extraordinary
g8
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
men, but it is only the uniform temperature of the same that
can give man happiness and fulfilment. And in what sort of
relation should we stand to past and coming ages, if the develop-
ment of human nature compelled us to such a sacrifice ? We
would become the thralls of mankind ; thousands of years long
for humanity’s sake we should be doing slave labour, and have
imprinted upon our crippled nature the shameful brand of this
servitude only that some later generation might nurse its moral
health in blissful leisure, and unfold the ample spread of its
humanity 1 But can it be that man is destined, for any aim
whatsoever, to neglect himself ? Can Nature with her aims rob
us of that perfection which the aims of reason prescribe for us ?
It must, therefore, be false, that the development of individual
capacities necessitates the sacrifice of their totality ; or, even if the
law of nature still pressed towards such a goal, we must never
relinquish that totality in our nature which cunning art has de-
molished, but which a still higher art may re-establish” (p. 30 )i
It is evident that Schiller in his personal life had a
profound sense of this conflict, and that it was just this
antagonism in himself which begat a longing to seek that
coherence and uniformity which should bring deliverance
to the wasting and enslaved functions and a restoration of
harmonious life. This is also the impelling motive in
Wagner’s Parsifal \ where it receives symbolical expression
in the restitution of the missing spear and the healing
of the wound. What Wagner attempted to say in artistic,
symbolical expression Schiller laboured to formulate in
philosophical thought. Although it is nowhere frankly
stated, the implication is clear enough that his problem
revolves around the possibility of resuming the classical
manner and conception of life ; from which one is obliged
to conclude that he either overlooks the Christian solution
of his problem or deliberately ignores it In any case
his mind is focussed more upon classic beauty than upon
the Christian doctrine of redemption, which, nevertheless,
has no other aim but the solution of that selfsame problem
in which Schiller himself travailed, viz. the deliverance from
1 The italics in the text are mine.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
99
eviL The heart of man is " filled with raging battle ”, says
Julian the Apostate in his discourse upon King Helios:
and these words significantly mark his insight not only into
his own problem but into that of his whole time, namely that
inner laceration of the later classical epoch which found
its outward expression in an unexampled, chaotic con-
fusion of hearts and minds, and from which the Christian
doctrine promised deliverance. What Christianity gave
was, of course, not a solution but a redemption , a detach-
ment of one valuable function from all the other functions
which, at that time, made an equally peremptory claim for
a share in government. Christianity gave one definite
direction, to the exclusion of every other possible direction.
This may have been the essential reason why the possibility
of salvation that Christianity offered was passed by Schiller
in silence.
The pagan’s near contact with Nature seemed to
promise just that possibility which Christianity did not
offer.
“ Nature, in her physical creation, shows us the way which
man has to travel in the moral world. Not until the battle of
elemental forces is spent in the lower organizations, does she
mount to the noble form of physical man. In the same way
this elemental strife in the ethical man, this conflict of blind
instincts, must first be assuaged; man must end the crude
antagonism in himself before he can venture to unfold his own
diversity. Upon the other hand, the independence of his char-
acter must be assured, and submissiveness to strange despotic
forms have given place to a decent freedom before man may
subject the diversity in himself to the unity of the ideal." (p. 32)
Thus it is not to be a detachment or redemption of the
inferior function, but an acknowledgment of it, a coming
to terms with it, as it were, which reconciles the opposites
upon the natural way. But Schiller feels that the accept-
ance of the inferior function might lead to a “ conflict of
blind instincts ”, just as — only vice versa — the unity of the
ideal might re-establish that priority of the superior over
IOO SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
the inferior function, and thereby once again precipitate the
original state of affairs. The inferior functions are opposed
to the superior, not so much in their essential nature but
as a result of their actual momentary form. They were
originally neglected and repressed, because they hindered
civilized man in the attainment of his aims ; but these
correspond with one-sided interests, and are by no means
synonymous with a consummation of human individuality.
If this were the aim, these unacknowledged functions would
be indispensable, and as a matter of fact their nature does
not contradict such an end. But, so long as the goal of
culture does not coincide with the ideal of individuality, these
functions are also subjected to a depreciation which means
a decline into relative repression. The conscious accept-
ance of the repressed functions is synonymous with civil
war, or with the unlocking of previously coupled antitheses,
whereby “independence of character” is immediately
abolished. This independence can be reached only by
a settlement of this conflict, which appears to be impossible
without despotic jurisdiction over the antagonizing forces.
But thereby freedom is compromised, without which the
constitution of a morally free personality is inconceivable.
But if one preserves freedom, one is delivered over to the
conflict of instincts.
“ Upon the one hand, in his recoil from liberty, who in her
first essays ever wears the semblance of an enemy, man will
throw himself into the arms of a comfortable servitude, while
upon the other, reduced to despair by a pedantic tutelage, he
will escape into the wild unrestraint of the state of nature. Usur-
pation will evoke the weakness of human nature, while insurrec-
tion its dignity, until finally blind force, the great sovereign of all
human affairs, will intervene, and like a common pugilist decide
the ostensible battle of principles.’ * (p. 33)
The contemporary revolution in France gave to this
statement a living, albeit a bloody background ; begun in
the name of philosophy and reason, with loftily soaring
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM ioi
idealism, it ended in a bloodthirsty chaos, from which arose
the despotic genius of Napoleon. The goddess of reason
proved herself powerless against the might of the unchained
beast. Schiller feels the defeat of reason and truth and
therefore has to postulate that truth itself shall become
a force.
“ If she has hitherto evinced so little of her conquering power,
the fault lies not so much with the intellect that knew not how
to unveil her, as with the heart that shut her out, and with the
instinct that did not work for her. Then whence this still pre-
vailing prejudice, this intellectual darkness, beside all the light
enthroned by philosophy and experience ? The age is enlightened,
knowledge has been found and is publicly accessible ; this should
at least suffice to correct our practical principles. The spirit
of free research has destroyed the illusions which so long barred
the approach to truth ; it has undermined the ground upon
which fanaticism and fraud had built their thrones. Reason
has purged herself of sense-delusion and false sophistries ; even
philosophy, which at first made us desert her, calls us with loud
insistence back to the bosom of nature — whence comes it then
that we are still barbarians ? ” (p. 3 5)
In these words of Schiller we can feel the nearness of
the French enlightenment and the phantastic intellectu-
alism of the Revolution. “ The age is enlightened ” — what
a strange over-valuation of the intellect I “ The spirit of free
research has destroyed the illusions ” — what rationalism !
One is vividly reminded of the words of the Proktophan-
tasmists: “Vanish! we have enlightened !” 1 If, on the
one hand, men of that time were too fain to over-estimate
the importance and efficacy of reason, quite forgetting that
if reason really possessed such a power, she had long had
the amplest opportunity to manifest it ; on the other hand,
the fact must not be. overlooked that not all the authori-
tative minds of that time held this view ; consequently this
soaring of a rationalistic intellectualism may well have
sprung from an especially strong subjective development
of this element in Schiller himself. In him we have to
1 Faust, Part I : Walpurgis-Nacht.
102 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
reckon with a predominance of the intellect, not at the
expense of his poetic intuition, but at the cost of feeling.
To Schiller himself it seemed as though there were a
perpetual conflict between imagination and abstraction, i.e.
between intuition and intellect. Thus he writes to Goethe
(31st August 1794): “This it is which gave me, especially
in early years, a certain awkwardness both in speculation
and in the realm of poetry ; as a rule the poet would over-
take me when I would be the philosopher, and the philo-
sophic spirit hold me when I would be the poet. Even yet
it happens often enough that imaginative power disturbs
my abstraction, and cold reasoning my poetry.” His
extraordinary admiration of Goethe’s mind, and his almost
feminine appreciation of his friend's intuition, to which he
so often gives expression in his Letters, rests upon a pene-
trating perception of this conflict, which must have seemed
redoubled in himself in contrast to the almost completely
synthetic nature of Goethe. This conflict was due to the
psychological circumstance that the energy of feeling gave
itself in equal measure both to the intellect and the creative
imagination. Schiller seems to have appreciated this fact,
for in the same letter to Goethe he makes the observation
that no sooner has he begun “ to know and to use ” his
moral forces, which should apportion reasonable limits to
the rival claims of imagination and intellect, than a physical
illness threatens to shatter them. For it is the character-
istic (already frequently alluded to) of an imperfectly
developed function, that it withdraws itself from conscious
disposition and with its own impetus, i.e. with a certain
autonomy, becomes unconsciously implicated with other
functions. Whereby, without any sort of differentiated
choice, it behaves as a purely dynamic factor; it might
well be described as an impetus or reinforcement which
lends the conscious differentiated function the character of
being carried away or coerced. So that, in one case, the
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
103
conscious function is seduced beyond the limits set by
purpose and decision ; in another, it is held up before the
attainment of its goal and led away upon a by-path ; while,
in a third case, it is brought into conflict with the other
conscious functions, a conflict which remains unresolved so
long as the unconsciously implicated and disturbing in-
stinctive force is not differentiated in its own right and
subjected as such to a certain conscious disposition. Thus
one is almost driven to assume that the cry : ‘ Whence
comes it then that we are still barbarians ? * is no mere
reflexion of the spirit of that age, but also springs from
Schiller’s subjective psychology. Like other men of his
time, he too sought the root of the evil in the wrong place,
for at no time did barbarism consist in a state where
reason or truth have an insufficient effect ; it appears only
when man expects such an effect from them, or, we might
even say, it is because man provides reason with too much
efficacy from a superstitious over-valuation of ‘‘truth’.
Barbarism is onesidedness, lack of moderation — bad pro-
portion generally.
In the impressive example of the French Revolution,
which had just then reached the culminating point of
terror, Schiller could see to what extent the goddess of
reason held sway in man, and how far the unreasoning
beast was triumphant. It was doubtless these events of
Schiller’s epoch which urged the problem upon him with
especial force, for it frequently happens that, when a
problem that is at bottom personal, and therefore appar-
ently subjective, impinges upon outer events which contain
the same psychological elements as the personal conflict
it is suddenly transformed into a general question that
embraces the whole of society. In this way, the personal
problem gains a dignity that was hitherto wanting ; since
a state of inner discord has an almost mortifying and
degrading quality, so that one sinks into a humiliated con-
io 4
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
dition both without and within, like a State dishonoured
by civil war. It is this that makes one shrink from dis-
playing before a larger public a purely personal conflict,
provided, of course, that one does not suffer from an
over-daring self-esteem. But when it happens that the
connection between the personal problem and the larger
contemporary events is discerned and understood, a rela-
tivity is established that promises release from the isolation
of the purely personal ; in other words, the subjective
problem is amplified to the dimensions of a general
question of our society. This is no small gain as regards
the possibility of a solution. ' For, whereas the rather
meagre energy of conscious interest in one’s own person
was hitherto the only source available for the personal
problem, there is now assembled the combined forces of
collective instinct, which flow in and unite with the in-
terests of the ego ; thus a new situation is brought about
which offers new possibilities of a solution. For what
would never have been possible to personal will or courage
is made possible by the force of collective instinct; it
bears a man over obstacles which his own personal energy
could never overcome.
We are therefore prompted to conjecture that it was
largely the impressions of contemporary events that gave
Schiller the courage to undertake this attempt to solve
the conflict between the individual and the social function.
The same antagonism was also deeply sensed by
Rousseau — indeed it was the starting point of his work
Emile , ou de Education (1762). Several passages are to
be found in it which have interest for our problem.
11 L’homme civil n’est qu’une unit6 fractionnaire qui tient
au ddnominateur, et dont la valeur est dans son rapport avec
rentier, qui est le corps social. Les bonnes institutions sociales
sont celles qui savent le mieux dSnaturer rhomme, lui dter son
existence absolue pour lui en donner une relative, et transporter
le moi dans l’unitg commune.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 105
“ Celui qui dans l’ordre civil vent conserver la primautd
des sentiments de la nature ne sait ce qu’il veut. Toujours en
contradiction avec lui-m&me, toujours flottant entre ses pen-
chants et ses devoirs, il ne sera jamais ni homme ni citoyen ; il
ne sera bon ni pour lui ni pour les autres.” 1
Rousseau opens his work with the famous sentence:
“Tout est bien, sortant des mains de 1* Auteur des choses ;
tout d£g£n&re entre les mains de Thomme.” 2 * * * * * This state-
ment is characteristic not for Rousseau alone but for that
whole epoch.
Schiller also turns back, not of course to Rousseau’s
natural man — and here lies an essential difference — but to
the man who lived “under a Grecian heaven ” But the retro-
spective orientation that is common to both is inextricably
bound up with an idealization and over-valuation of the past.
Schiller in the wonder of pagan art forgets the actual every-
day Greek; Rousseau mounts to dizzy heights, losing him-
self in phrases such as : “ Thomme naturel est tout pour lui ;
il est l*unit6 num6rique, rentier absolu.” 8 Whereby he over-
looks the fact that the natural man is wholly collective, i.e.
just as much in others as in himself, and is everything else
besides a mere unity. In another passage Rousseau says :
“ Nous tenons k tout, nous nous accrochons k tout, les temps,
les lieux, les homines, les choses, tout ce qui est, tout ce qui
1 Emile , livre i : “ Man as a citizen is only a fractional unity de-
pendent upon a denominator, and his value lies in his relation with
the whole, which is society. Those institutions are good which best
understand how to change the nature of man, how to take from him
his absolute existence unto himself and give him a relative one, how,
in short, to translate the ego into a common unity.
“ He who wishes to preserve in his life as a citizen the supremacy of
natural feelings knows not what he wants. Ever in contradiction
with himself, ever hovering between his inclinations and his duties,
he wiU become neither man nor citizen ; he will be useless both to him-
self and others/'
* “ Everything as it leaves the hands of the Author of things is
good ; everything degenerates under the hands of man."
* Emile, livre ii : " Natural man is wholly himself ; he is an integral
unity, an absolute whole."
106 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
sera, importe & chacun de nous, notre individu n'est plus que
la moindre partie de nous-mtoes. Chacun s'^tend, pour ainsi
dire, sur la terre entire, et devient sensible sur toute cette grande
surface.”
“ Est-ce la nature qui porte ainsi les hommes si loin d'eux-
mSmes ? ” 1
Rousseau deceives himself ; he believes this state to be
a recent development But this is not so. Granted it has
only recently become conscious to us, it none the less always
existed, and it reveals itself all the more vividly the further
we descend into the origins. For what Rousseau depicts
is nothing but that primitive collective mentality which
L6vy-Bruhl has aptly termed “participation mystique”. 2
This state of suppression of the individuality is no new
acquisition, but a residue of that archaic time when there
was no individuality whatsoever.
What we are dealing with is not, therefore, a recent
suppression, but merely a new sense and awareness of the
overwhelming power of the collective. One naturally pro-
jects this power into political and ecclesiastical institutions,
as though there were not already ways and means enough
for the evasion of even moral commands when occasion
suited ! In no way have these institutions that presumed
omnipotence for which they are from time to time assailed
by innovators of every sort; the suppressing power lies
unconsciously in ourselves, namely in our own barbarian
element with its primitive collective mentality. To the
collective psyche every individual development is obnoxious
which does not directly serve the ends of collectivity.
Hence the differentiation of the one function mentioned
i “ We cling to everything, we clutch on to all times, places, men,
things ; all that is, and all that will be, matters to each of us ; our
individual self is only the least part of ourselves. Each extends, as
it were, over the whole earth, and becomes sensitive to this whole vast
surface.
“ Is it nature which thus bears men so far from themselves ? ”
* I^vy-Bruhl, Lts FoncHons tnentofa fans fa $ootiUs inf&ieurtf.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 107
above, although certainly a development of an individual
value is still so largely conditioned by the view-point of
collectivity, that the individual himself, as we have already
seen, actually suffers from this development.
Both authors have to thank their imperfect acquaint-
ance with earlier conditions of human psychology for their
lapse into false judgments upon the values of the past
The result of this false judgment is a belief in the illusory
picture of an earlier, more perfect type of man, who some-
how fell from his high estate. Backward orientation is in
itself a relic of pagan thinking, for it is a well-known
characteristic of the whole classic and barbaric mentality
that it imagined a paradisiacal age as a golden forerunner
of the present evil time.
It was the great social and educational act of Christi-
anity which first gave man a future hope, assuring him of
a future possibility for the realization of his ideals \ The
stronger note of this retro-orientation in the more recent
intellectual movements may be connected with the appear-
ance of that general regression towards the pagan which
with the Renaissance made itself increasingly manifest
It seems to me certain that this retrogressive orientation
must also have a definite influence upon the means selected
for human education. For a mind thus orientated is ever
seeking support in some phantasmagoria in the past We
could make light of this, if the knowledge of the conflict
between the types and the typical mechanisms were not also
constantly urging us to seek for that which could re-estab-
lish their unity. As we may see in the following passages,
this goal had also a profound interest for Schiller. His
fundamental ideaabout it is expressed in the following words,
which indeed actually sum up what has just been said :
“ Let a benevolent, deity snatch in time the suckling from
his mother’s breast, nourish him with the milk of a better age.
1 Indications of this are already to be found in the Grecian mysteries.
io8 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
and let him ripen to maturity under that far Grecian heaven.
Then, when he is become a man, let him return, a strange figure,
into his own century : but not that he may delight it with his
appearance, but terrible, like Agamemnon’s son, to purify it.”
— Erziehung d. Menschen, p. 39
The leaning towards the Grecian model could scarcely
be more clearly expressed. But in this narrow formulation
one can also glimpse a limitation, which in the following
paragraph urges him to a very essential amplification, for
he continues: “His material will he indeed take from
the present, but his form he will borrow from an older
age. Yea, from beyond all ages , from the absolute , un-
changeable unity of his being. 9 ' Schiller clearly felt that he
must go back still further, into some primeval heroic age,
where men were still half-divine. He therefore continues :
“ Here from the pure aether of his daemonic nature wells
forth the source of beauty, untainted by the depravity of
the generations and epochs, which whirl in troubled eddies
far below.” Here is ushered in the lovely phantom of a
Golden Age, when men were still gods and were constantly
. refreshed with the vision of eternal beauty. But here, too,
the poet has overtaken the thinker in Schiller. A few
pages further on the thinker again gets the upper hand.
4< The fact ”, says Schiller (p. 47), “ must cause one to reflect
that in almost every epoch of history, when the arts
blossomed and taste ruled, one finds that humanity
declined ; furthermore not one single example can be shown
of a people where a high level and a wide universality of
aesthetic culture went hand in hand with political freedom
and civic virtue, or where beautiful manners went with
good morals, or polished behaviour with truth.”
According to this familiar and in every way undeniable
experience, those heroes of olden days must have pursued
a none too scrupulous conduct of life, which, moreover, no
single myth, either Grecian or otherwise, maintains.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 109
Beauty could still delight in her existence, for as yet there
was neither penal code nor guardian of public morals.
With the recognition of the psychological fact that
living beauty unfolds her golden splendour only when
soaring above a reality of gloom, torment, and squalor,
Schiller’s particular aim is undermined; for he had
undertaken to prove that what was separated would be
reconciled by the vision, enjoyment, and creation of the
beautiful. Beauty was to be the mediator which should
restore the primal unity of human nature. But, neverthe-
less, all experience goes to show that beauty needs her
opposite as a necessary condition of her existence.
As before it was the poet, it is now the thinker that
possesses Schiller; he mistrusts beauty, he even holds it
possible, arguing from experience, that she may exercise
an unfavourable influence: "Wherever we turn our eyes
into the world of the past, we find taste and freedom
fleeing one another, and beauty establishing her sovereignty
only upon the ruins of the heroic virtues ” This insight,
which is the product of experience, can hardly sustain
the claim that Schiller makes for beauty. In the further
pursuit of his theme he even reaches a point where he
abstracts the reverse of beauty with an all too enviable
clarity : “ Thus, if one’s view about the effect of beauty is
entirely influenced by what one learns from all bygone
experience, one cannot be greatly encouraged in the work
of educating feelings which prove to be so dangerous to the
true culture of man; and, in spite of the danger of crudity
and hardness, man is wiser to forego the softening power
of beauty than, with every advantage of refinement, to be
delivered over to her enervating influence.”
The matter between the poet and the thinker would
surely allow of adjustment if the thinker took the words
of the poet not literally but symbolically , which is how
the tongue of the poet desires to be understood. Can
CIO
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
Schiller have misunderstood himself? It would almost
seem so— otherwise he could not argue thus against
himself. The poet sings of a spring of unsullied beauty
which flows beneath every age and generation, and is
constantly swelling in every human heart It is not the
man of ancient Greece, the poet means, but the old pagan
in ourselves; that piece of eternal, unspoiled nature and
natural beauty which lies unconscious but living within
us, whose reflected splendour transfigures the shapes of
former days, and for whose sake we even embrace the
error that those distant men actually possessed the beauty
which we are seeking. It is the archaic man in ourselves,
who, rejected by our collectively orientated consciousness,
appears to us as hideous and inacceptable, but who is
nevertheless the bearer of that beauty which we elsewhere
unavailingly seek. This is the man the poet Schiller
means, but the thinker Schiller mistakes him for his
Grecian prototype. But what the thinker cannot logically
deduce from all his massed material, and at which he
labours in vain, the poet in symbolical language reveals
to him as a promised land.
It is now sufficiently clear- from all that has been said
that every attempt at an adjustment of the one-sided
differentiation of the human being of our times has to
reckon with the serious acceptance of the inferior, because
undifferentiated, functions. No attempt at mediation will
succeed which does not understand how to release the
energies of the inferior functions and to lead them over
into differentiation. This process can take place only in
accordance with the laws of energetics, i.e. a potential
must be created which offers the latent energies a possi-
bility of coming into play.
It would be a hopeless task — which nevertheless has
been often undertaken and as often foundered — to trans-
form an inferior function directly into a superior one.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
in
It would be as easy to make a perpetuum mobile. No
inferior form of energy can be simply converted into a
superior form unless at the same time a source of higher
value lends its support, i.e. the conversion can be accom-
plished only at the expense of the superior function.
But under no circumstances can the initial value of the
superior energy-form be attained by the inferior function
or resumed once more by the superior function ; a levelling
at some intermediate temperature must inevitably result
But for every individual who identifies himself with his
one differentiated function, this entails a descent to a
condition that is certainly balanced, but of a definitely
lower value as compared with the apparent initial value.
This conclusion is unavoidable. Every education of man
which aspires after the unity and harmony of his nature
has to deal with this fact After his own manner, Schiller
also draws this conclusion, but he struggles against accept-
ing his results, even to the point where he has to renounce
beauty. But when the thinker has uttered his ruthless
judgment, the poet speaks again: “But it may be that
experience is no tribunal before which a question like this
shall be decided, and before we give weight to its testi-
mony, let all doubt be set at rest that the beauty we
speak of, and that against which these examples testify,
is one and the same” (p. 50). One sees that Schiller
here attempts to take his stand above experience; in
other words he bestows upon beauty a quality which
experience does not grant her. He believes that “ Beauty
must be proven a necessary condition of mankind ”, t\e. a
necessary, compelling category. He even speaks of a
purely intellectual concept of beauty, and a “ transcendental
way” which shall take us out of the “ round of appearances
and away from the living presence of things”. “Who
durst not go beyond reality will never vanquish truth ”
A subjective resistance to the experimental, inevitable,
112
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
downward way prompts Schiller to suborn the logical
intellect in the service of feeling, thus forcing it to con-
struct a formula which would ultimately make possible
the attainment of the original aim, notwithstanding the
fact that its impossibility is already sufficiently exposed.
A similar violence is committed by Rousseau in his
assumption that, whereas dependence upon nature does
not involve depravity, it does if one is dependent upon
man ; from which he arrives at the following conclusion :
“ Si les lois des nations pouvaient avoir comme celles de la
nature, une inflexibility que jamais aucune force humaine ne
pflt vaincre, la d£pendance des homines redeviendrait alors
celle des choses ; on r&mirait dans la r6pnblique tous les avan-
tages de r 6tat naturel k cenx de 1*6 tat civil ; on joindrait k la
liberty qui maintient l'homme exempt de vice la morality qui
ryidve k la vertu ”. 1
Arising out of these reflections he gives the following
advice :
“ Maintenez 1’ enfant dans la seule d6pendance des choses,
vous aurez suivi l’ordre de la nature dans le progrds de son yduca-
tion. . . II ne faut point contraindre un enfant de rester quand
il veut aller, ni d’aller quand il veut rester en place. Quand la
volonty des enfants n’est point gfltde par notre faute, ils ne veulent
rien inutilement. a,,
But the misfortune lies in this : that never, under any
circumstances, do "les lois des nations 9> possess that
admirable accord with the laws of nature which could
enable the civilized to be at the same time a natural state.
i “ If the laws of nations, like those of nature, could have an in-
flexibility that no human force could ever vanquish, the dependence
of men would become once more like that of things ; one could combine
in the republic all the advantages of the natural state with those of
citizenship ; one could add to the liberty which exempts man from
vice the morality which raises him to virtue."
* Emile, livre ii : *' Keep the child dependent solely upon things,
you will have foUowed the order of nature in the progress of his educa-
tion. . . Do not force a child to stay when it wants to go, or to go when
it wants to stay quiet. When the will of our children is not spoiled
by our own fault, they desire nothing that is useless."
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
”3
If such a settlement could be regarded as at all possible,
it could be conceived only as a compromise wherein
neither of the two conditions would attain its own ideal
but both would remain far below it. Whoever wishes to
attain the ideal of either state will have to rest with the
statement that Rousseau himself formulated : “ II faut
opter entre faire un homme ou un citoyen: car on ne
peut faire & la fois Tun et Tautre.” (“One must choose
whether to make a man or a citizen ; for at the same time
one cannot make both”)
Both these necessities exist in ourselves : Nature and
culture. We cannot only be ourselves, we must also be
related to others. Hence a way must be found that is
not a mere rational compromise ; it must also be a state or
process that wholly corresponds with the living being, it
must be a “ semita et via sancta ” as the prophet says,
a “via directa ita ut stulti non errent per earn.” (“A
highway and the way of holiness.” “ A straight way so
that fools shall not err therein.”) ( Isaiah , xxxv. 8). I am
therefore disposed to give the poet in Schiller his just
due, although in this case he has encroached somewhat
outrageously upon the province of the thinker; since
rational truths are not the last word, there are also
irrational truths. In human affairs, what appears im-
possible upon the way of the intellect has very often
become true upon the way of the irrational. Indeed, all
the greatest changes that have ever affected mankind
have come not by the way of intellectual calculation, but
by ways which contemporary minds either ignored or
rejected as absurd, and which only long afterwards became
fully recognised through their intrinsic necessity. More
often than not they are never perceived' at all, for the
all-important laws of mental development are still to us
disposed to grant any considerable
E
a s even-sealed book.
I am, however, lit
1X4 SCHILLER AND THE: TYPE-PROBLEM
value to the philosophical demeanour of the poet, for the
intellect is a deceptive instrument in his hands. What
the intellect can achieve, it has in this case already
done; for it disclosed the contradiction between desire
and experience. To persist, then, in demanding a solution
of this contradiction from philosophical thinking would be
quite useless. And, even if a solution could finally be
thought out, the real obstacle would still confront us, for
the- solution does not lie in the possibility of thinking it
or in the discovery of a rational truth, but in the revealing
of a way which real life can accept Propositions and
wise precepts have indeed never been wanting. If it were
only a question of these, even in the remote days of
Pythagoras, man had the finest opportunity of reaching
the heights from every direction. Therefore what Schiller
proposes must not be taken in a literal sense, but rather
as a symbol , which, in harmony with Schiller’s philosophical
temperament, assumes the character of a philosophical
concept. Similarly the “ transcendental way ” which
Schiller sets out to tread must not be understood as a
cognitional raisonnement, but symbolically as that way
which a man always follows when he . encounters an
obstacle immediately inaccessible to his reason — in a word,
an insoluble task. But, before he is able to discover and
follow this way, he must first abide a long time with
the opposites into which his former way divided. The
obstacle dams up the river of his life. Whenever such
a damming up of libido occurs, the opposites, formerly
united in the steady flow of life, fall apart and henceforth
oppose one another like antagonists eager for battle. In
a prolonged conflict, the upshot and duration of which
cannot be foretold, the opposites become exhausted, and
from the energy which goes out of them is that third
element created which is the beginning of the new way.
In accordance with this law, Schiller now devotes
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 115
himself to a profound research of the actual opposites at
work. Whatever the nature of the obstacle we may strike
— provided only it be difficult — the cleavage between our
own purpose and the contending object at once becomes
a conflict in ourselves. For, inasmuch as I am striving
to subordinate the contending object to my will, my
whole being is gradually placed into relationship with it,
corresponding, in fact, with the strong libido application,
which as it were transveys a part of my being into the
object The result of this is a partial identification
between certain portions of my personality and similar
qualities in the nature of the object As soon as this
identification has taken place, the conflict is transferred
into my own psyche. This * introjection ’ into myself of
the conflict with the object creates an inner discord, which
gives rise to a certain impotence vis-i-vis the object, and
also releases affects, which are always symptomatic of
inner disharmony. But the affects prove that I am
perceiving myself and am therefore in a situation — if I
am not blind — to apply my observation upon myself, and
to follow up the play of opposites in my own psyche.
This is the way that Schiller takes. The division that
he finds is not between the State and the individual, but,
in the beginning of the eleventh Letter (p. 5 1), he conceives
it as the duality of “ person and condition”, namely as the
self or ego and its changing affectedness 1 . Whereas the
ego has a relative constancy, its relatedness (or affectedness)
is variable. Schiller thus intends to seize the discord at
the root. Actually, the one side is also the conscious ego-
function, while the other is the collective relationship.
Both determinants belong to human psychology. But the
various types will respectively see these basic facts in quite
a different light For the introvert, the idea of the self is
doubtless the abiding and dominant note of consciousness,
1 Affectedness is used to denote the state of being affected.
ii6 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
and its antithesis for him is relatedness or affectedness.
For the extravert, on the contrary, much more stress is
laid upon the continuity of the relation with the object,
and less upon the idea of the self. Hence for him the
problem is differently situated. We must hold this point
in view and consider it more fully as we follow Schiller’s
further reflections. When, for instance, he says the person
reveals itself “in the eternally constant self and in this
alone ”, this is viewed from the standpoint of the introvert
From the standpoint of the extravert, on the other hand,
we should say that the person reveals itself simply and
solely in its relationship, i.e. in the function of relation to
the object. For only with the introvert is the “ person ”
exclusively the ego ; with the extravert the person lies in
his affectedness and not in the affected self. His self is,
as it were, of less importance than his affection, is. his
relation. The extravert finds himself in the fluctuating
and changeable, the introvert in the constant. The self is
not “eternally constant”, least of all with the extravert,
for whom, as an object, it is a matter of small moment
To the introvert, on the other hand, it has too much
importance : he therefore shrinks from every change that
is at all liable to affect his ego. For him affectedness can
mean something directly painful, while to the extravert it
must on no account be missed. The following formulation
immediately reveals the introvert : " In every change to
remain himself constant, referring every perception to
experience, i.e. to the unity of knowledge, and relating
each of its varying aspects in his own time to the law of
all times ; this is the command given him by his reasoning
nature” (p. 54). The abstracting, self-contained attitude
is evident; it is even made a supreme rule of conduct.
Every occurrence must at once be raised to the level of
experience, and from the sum of experience a law for the
future must also immediately emerge ; whereas the other
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 117
attitude, in which no experience shall be made from the
occurrence lest laws might transpire which would hamper
the future, is equally human.
It is altogether in keeping with this attitude that
Schiller cannot think of God as becomings but only as
eternally being (p. 54) ; hence with unerring intuition he
also recognizes the “God-likeness” of the introverted
attitude towards the idea : “ Man, presented in his perfec-
tion would be the constant unit, remaining eternally the
same amid the floods of change.” “ Man carries the divine
disposition incontestably within his personality ”(p. 54).
This view of the nature of God agrees ill with His
Christian incarnation and with those similar neo-Platonic
views of the mother of the Gods and of her son, who
descends into creation as Demiurgos. 1 But it is clear
from this view to which function Schiller attributes the
highest value, the divinity, viz. the constancy of the idea
of the self. The self that is abstracted from affectedness
is for him the most important thing, and hence, as is the
case with every introvert, this is the idea which he has
chiefly developed. His God, his highest value, is the
abstraction and conservation of the self. To the extra-
vert, on the contrary, God is the experience of the object,
the fullest expansion into reality: hence a God who
became human is to him more sympathetic than an
eternal, immutable law-giver. Here I must observe in
anticipation that these points-of-view should be regarded
only as valid for the conscious psychology of the types.
In the unconscious the relations are reversed. Schiller
seems to have had an inkling of this : although indeed his
consciousness believes in an unchangingly existing God,
yet the way to God-hood is revealed to him by the senses,
hence in affectedness, in the changing and living process.
But this is for him the function of secondary importance,
1 Cl the discourse of Julian upon the mother of the Gods.
ii8 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
and, to the extent that he identifies himself with his ego
and abstracts it from the “ changing ” process, his conscious
attitude also becomes quite abstracted ; whereby the
function of affectedness or relatedness to the object per-
force relapses into the unconscious. From this state of
affairs noteworthy consequences ensue :
I. From the conscious attitude of abstraction, which in
pursuit of its ideal makes an experience from every
occurrence, and from the sum of experience a law, a
certain constriction and poverty results, which is indeed
characteristic of the introvert. Schiller clearly feels this
in his relationship with Goethe, for he sensed Goethe’s
more extraverted nature as something objectively opposed
to himself 1 . Significantly Goethe says of himself : “ As a
contemplative man I am an arrant realist. I find that
among all the things which confront me I am in the
position of desiring nothing from them or added to them,
and I make no sort of discrimination among objects
beyond their interest for myself .” 2 Concerning Schiller’s
effect upon him, Goethe very characteristically says : “ If
I have served you as the representative of many objects,
you have led me from a too intense observation of outer
things and their relationships back into myself You have
taught me to view the many-sidedness of the inner man with
finer equity ” etc . 8 Whereas in Goethe Schiller finds an
oft-times accentuated complement or fulfilment of his own
nature, at the same time sensing his difference, which he
indicates in the following way :
“ Expect of me no great material wealth of ideas, for that
is what I find in you. My need and endeavour is to make much
out of little, and, if ever you should realize my poverty in all
that men call acquired knowledge, you will perhaps find that in
many ways my aspiration has succeeded. Because my circle of
fdeas is smaller I traverse it more quickly and oftener. I may,
i Letter to Goethe , January 5th 1798- * Letter to Schiller , April 1798.
* Letter to Schiller , January 6th 1798.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 119
therefore, even make a better use of what small ready cash I
own, creating a diversity through form which the contents lack.
You strive to simplify your great world of ideas, while I seek
variety for my small possessions. You have a kingdom to rule,
and I only a somewhat numerous family of ideas which I would
fain expand to a small universe .” — Letter to Goethe , Aug. 31st
1794.
If we subtract from this utterance a certain feeling of
inferiority characteristic of the introvert, and add to it the
fact that the extravert’s “ great world of ideas ” is not so
much under his rule as he himself is subject to it, then
Schiller’s presentation gives a striking picture of the
poverty which tends to develop as a result of an essentially
abstract attitude.
II. A further result of the abstracting, conscious
attitude, and one whose significance will become more
apparent in the further course of our investigation, is that
the unconscious develops a compensating attitude. For the
more the relation to the object is restricted by the abstraction
of consciousness (because too many ‘ experiences’ and * laws *
are made), all the more insistently does a craving for the
object develop in the unconscious. This finally declares
itself in consciousness as a compulsive sensuous hold upon
the object; whereupon the sensuous tie takes the place of a
feeling-relation to the object, which is lacking, or rather
suppressed, through abstraction. Characteristically, there-
fore Schiller regards the senses , and not the feelings , as the
way to God-hood. His ego lies with thinking, but his
affectedness, his feelings, with sensation. Thus with him
the schism is between spirituality as thinking, and sensuous-
ness as affectedness or feeling. With the extravert,
however, matters are reversed: his relation to the object
is developed, but his world of ideas is sensational and
concrete.
Sensuous feeling, or to put it better, the feeling that
exists in the state of sensation, is collective , i.e. it begets
120 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
a state of relation or affectedness, which at the same time
always translates the individual into the condition of
“participation mystique”, hence into a state of partial
identity with the sensed object This identity declares
itself in a compulsory dependence upon the sensed object,
and it is this which again prompts the introvert, after the
manner of the circulus vitiosus, to an intensification of that
abstraction which shall abolish both the burdensome
relation and the compulsion it evokes. Schiller recognized
this peculiarity of the sensuous feeling: “So long as he
merely senses, craves, and works from desire, man is still
nothing more than world" (p. 55). But since, in order to
escape affectedness, the introvert cannot abstract in-
definitely, he ultimately sees himself forced to shape the
external world. “ That he may not be merely world, he
must impart form to matter” says Schiller {ibid .') ; “he
shall externalize all within, and shape everything without”
Both tasks, in their highest achievement, lead back to the
idea of divinity from which I started out
This connection is important. Let us suppose the
sensuously felt object to be a man-^-will he accept this
prescription? Will he, in fact, permit himself to take
shape as though the man to whom he is related were his
creator? To play the god on a small scale is certainly
man’s vocation, but ultimately even inanimate things have
a divine right to their own existence and the world long
ago ceased to be chaos when the first man-apes began to
sharpen stones. It would, indeed, be a serious business if
every introvert wished to externalize his narrow world of
ideas and to shape the external world accordingly. Such
experiments happen daily, but the individual ego suffers,
and very justly, from this “ God-likeness ”,
For the extravert, this formula should run: “to in-
ternalize all that is without and shape everything within”.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 121
Goethe. Goethe gives a telling parallel to this. He
writes to Schiller: “In every sort of activity I, on the
other hand, am — one might almost say — completely ideal-
istic: I ask nothing at all from objects ; but instead I demand
that everything shall conform to my conceptions (April
1798). This means that when the extravert thinks, things
go just as autocratically as when the introvert operates
externally 1 . This formula therefore can hold good only
where an almost complete stage has already been reached ;
when in fact the introvert has attained a world of ideas so
rich and flexible and capable of expression that the object
no longer forces him upon a Procrustean bed ; and the
extravert such an ample knowledge of and consideration
for the object that a caricature of it can no longer arise
when he operates with it in his thinking. Thus we see
that Schiller bases his formula upon the highest possible,
and therefore makes an almost prohibitive demand upon
the psychological development of the individual — assuming
also that he is thoroughly clear in his own mind what
his formula involves in every particular. Be that as it
may, it is at least fairly clear that this formula : “To
externalize all that is within and shape everything with-
out ” is the ideal of the conscious attitude of the introvert.
It is based, on the one hand, upon the hypothesis of an
ideal range of his inner world of concepts and formal
principles, and, on the other, upon the possibility of an
ideal application of the sensuous principle, which in that
case no longer appears as affectedness, but rather as an
active power. So long as man is “sensuous” he is “nothing
but world ” ; that he may be “ not merely world he must
impart form to matter”. Herein lies a reversal of the
* I wish it to be clearly understood that all my observations upon
the extravert and introvert in this chapter hold valid only for the
special types here dealt with, viz. the intuitive, feeling extravert repre-
sented by Goethe, and the intuitive, thinking introvert represented by
Schiller.
E*
122
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
passive, enduring, sensuous principle. Yet how can such
a reversal come to pass? That is the whole question.
It can scarcely be assumed that a man can give to his
world of ideas that extraordinary range which would be
necessary in order to impose a congenial form upon the
material world, and at the same time convert his affected-
ness, his sensuous nature, from a passive to an active
condition, thus bringing it to the heights of his world of
ideas. Somewhere or other man must be related, subjected
as it were, else would he be really God-like. One is
forced to conclude that Schiller would let it reach a point
at which violence was done to the object But in so
doing he would concede to the archaic inferior function an
unlimited right to existence, which as we know Nietzsche
has actually done — at least theoretically. This assumption,
however, is by no means conclusive with regard to Schiller,
since, so far as I am aware, he has nowhere consciously
expressed himself to this effect. His formula has instead
a thoroughly naive and idealistic character, a character
withal quite consistent with the spirit of his time, which
was not yet infected by that deep mistrust of human
nature and human truth which haunted the epoch of
psychological criticism inaugurated by Nietzsche.
The Schiller formula could be carried out only by a
power standpoint, applied without ruth or consideration :
a standpoint with never a scruple about equity and
reasonableness towards the object nor any conscientious
examination of its own competence. Only under such
conditions, which Schiller certainly never contemplated,
could the inferior function also win to a share in life. In
this way, archaic, naive, and unconscious elements, though
decked out in a glamour of mighty words and lovely
gestures, ever came crowding through, and assisted in
the moulding of our present * civilisation/ concerning the
nature of which humanity is at this moment in some
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 123
measure of disagreement The archaic power instinct,
which hitherto had hidden itself behind the gesture of
culture, finally came to the surface in its true colours,
and proved beyond question that we “ are still barbarians.”
For it should not be forgotten that, in the same measure
as the conscious attitude has a real claim to a certain
God-likeness by reason of its lofty and absolute stand-
point, an unconscious attitude also develops, whose God-
likeness is orientated downwards towards an archaic god
whose nature is sensual and brutal. The enantiodromia
of Heraclitus forebodes the time when this deus absconditus
shall also rise to the surface and press the God of our
ideals to the wall. It is as though men at the close of
the eighteenth century had not really seen what that was
which was taking place in Paris, but persisted in a certain
aesthetical, enthusiastic, or trifling attitude, that they might
perchance delude themselves concerning the real meaning
of that glimpse into the abysses of human nature.
** But in that netherworld is terror.
And man tempteth not the gods.
Craving only that he may never, never see
What they in pity veil with night and horror."
Schiller’s Der Toucher .
When Schiller lived, the time for dealing with the under-
world was not yet come. Neitzsche at heart was much
nearer to it, for to him it was certain that we were
approaching an epoch of great struggle. He it was, the
only true pupil of Schopenhauer, who tore through the
veil of nai'vete and in his Zarathustra conjured up from
that lower region ideas that were destined to be the most
vital content of the coming age.
(b) Concerning the basic instincts
In the twelfth Letter Schiller deals with the two basic
instincts, to which at this point he devotes a somewhat
124
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
fuller description. The “ sensuous ” instinct is that which
is concerned with the “ placing of man within the confines
of time, and making him material.” This instinct demands
that “there be change, and that time should have a
content This state, which is merely filled time, is called
sensation ” (p. 56). “In this state man is nothing but a
unit of magnitude, a filled moment of time or — more
correctly — he is not even, that, for his personality is
dissolved so long as sensation rules him and time carries
him along” (p. 5 7). “With unbreakable bonds this
instinct chains the upward-striving mind to the world
of sense, and calls abstraction from unfettered wandering
in the infinite, back into the confines of the present.”
It is entirely characteristic of Schiller’s psychology
that he should conceive the expression of this instinct as
“sensation”, and not as active, sensuous desire . This
shows that for him sensuousness has the character of
reaction, of affectedness, which is altogether characteristic
of the introvert. An extravert would undoubtedly first
lay stress upon the character of desire. There is further
significance in the statement that it is this instinct which
demands change. The idea wants changelessness and
eternity. Whoever lives under the supremacy of the
idea, strives for permanence ; hence everything that
pushes towards change must be against it. In Schiller's
case it is feeling and sensation that oppose the idea, since
by natural law they are fused together as a result of their
undeveloped state. Schiller did not even sufficiently dis-
criminate in thought between feeling and sensation , as the
following passage demonstrates : “ Feeling can only say :
This is true for this subject at this moment ; but another
moment or another subject may come and revoke the
statement of this present sensation ” (p. 59). This passage
clearly shows that, with Schiller, sensation and feeling are
actually interchangeable terms, and its content reveals an
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
125
inadequate valuation and differentiation of feeling as
opposed to sensation. Differentiated feeling can also
establish universal validity ; it is not purely casuistical.
But it is certainly true, that the “ feeling-sensation ” of
the introverted thinking type is, by reason of its passive
and reactive character, purely casuistical. For it can
never mount above the individual case, by which it is
alone stimulated, to an abstract comparison of all cases ;
because with the introverted thinking type this office is
allotted not to feeling but to thinking. But matters are
reversed with the introverted feeling type, whose feeling
reaches an abstract and universal character and can
establish permanent values.
From a further analysis of Schiller’s description we
find that “ feeling-sensation ” (by which term I mean the
characteristic fusion of feeling and sensation in the intro-
verted thinking type) is that function with which the ego
is not definitely identified. It has the character of some-
thing inimical and foreign, that “destroys” the per-
sonality ; it draws it away with it as it were, setting the
man outside himself and alienating him from himself.
Hence Schiller likens it to the affect that sets a man
« beside himself” \ When one has collected oneself, this
is termed with equal justice “being oneself again , 2 i.e.
returning once more to the self, restoring one’s per-
sonality”. The conclusion, therefore, is unmistakable
that to Schiller it seems as though “feeling-sensation”
does not really belong to the person, but is merely a
more or less precarious accessory, to which on occasion
“a robust will is victoriously opposed”. But to the
extravert it is just this side of him which seems to
constitute his real nature; it is as if he were actually
with himself only when he is affected by the object — a
circumstance we can well understand, when we consider
1 i.e. cxtraverted. * i.e. introverted.
126 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
that the relation to the object is his superior, differentiated
function to which abstract thinking and feeling are just
as much opposed as they are indispensable to the intro-
vert. The thinking of the extraverted feeling type is just
as prejudicially affected by the sensuous instinct as is the
feeling of the introverted thinking type. For both it
means extreme “ limitation ” to the material and casuistical.
Living through the object has also its “ unfettered wander-
ing in the infinite ”, and not abstraction alone, as Schiller
thinks.
By means of this exclusion of sensuousness from the
idea and range of the ‘ person ’, Schiller is able to arrive
at the view that the person is “absolute and indivisible
unity, which can never be in contradiction with itself.”
This unity is a desideratum of the intellect, which would
fain maintain its subject in the most ideal integrity;
hence as the superior function it must exclude the
sensuous or relatively inferior function. But the final
result of this is that crippling of the human being which
is the very motive and starting-point of Schiller’s quest.
Since, for Schiller, feeling has the quality of “ feeling-
sensation ” and is therefore merely casuistical, the supreme
value, a really eternal value, is given to formative thought,
the so-called “formative instinct” 1 , as Schiller tails it:
“But when thought has once affirmed This is, it is
decided for all time , and the validity of its pronouncement
is vouched for by the personality itself, which offers defiance
to all change ” (p. 59). But one cannot refrain from asking :
Does the meaning and value of personality really reside
only in what is constant and permanent ? Can it not be
that change, becoming and development, represent even
higher values than sheer “ defiance ” against change ? *
1 " Formative instinct" is equivalent to "thinking faculty** foi
Schiller.
fl Schiller himself criticizes this point later.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
127
"When the formative instinct becomes the guiding power and
the pure object works in us, then is the supreme unfolding of being,
then do all barriers dissolve, then, from a unit of magnitude, to
which needy sense confined him, has man arisen to a unit of idea
embracing the entire realm of phenomena. No longer are we indi-
viduals, but the race : through our mind is the judgment of all
minds pronounced, and by our deed is the choice of every heart
represented/ *
It is unquestionable that the thought of the introvert
aspires towards this Hyperion ; it is only a pity that the
unit of idea is the ideal of such a very limited class of men.
Thinking is merely a function which, when fully developed
and exclusively obeying its own laws, naturally sets up
a claim to general validity. Only one part of the world,
therefore, can be comprehended through thinking, another
part only through feeling, a third only through sensation,
etc. There are, in fact, various psychic functions ; for, bio-
logically, the psychic system can be understood only as an
adaptation system; eyes exist presumably because there
is light. Thinking, therefore, under all circumstances
commands only a third or a fourth of the total significance,
although in its own sphere it possesses exclusive validity —
just as vision is the exclusively valid function for the recep-
tion of light-waves, and hearing for sound-waves. Hence
a man who sets the unit of idea on a pinnacle, and senses
“ feeling-sensation ” as something antithetic to his person-
ality, can be compared with a man who has good eyes but
is nevertheless quite deaf and anaesthetic.
“ No longer are we individuals, but the race ” : certainly,
if we exclusively identify ourselves with thinking, or with
any one function whatsoever ; for then are we collective
and generally valid beings, although quite estranged from
ourselves. Outside this quarter-psyche, the other three
quarters are in the darkness of repression and inferiority.
“Est-ce la nature, qui porte ainsi les hommes si loin
d’eux-m6mes ? ” we might here ask with Rousseau — is it
indeed Nature, or is it not rather our own psychology, which
128 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
so barbarously overprizes the one function and allows itself
to be swept away by it? This impetus is of course a piece
of Nature, namely that untamed, instinctive energy, before
which the differentiated type recoils if ever it should
‘ accidentally ’ reveal itself in an inferior and despised
function, instead of in the ideal function, where it is prized
and honoured as divine enthusiasm. Schiller truly says :
“ But thy individuality and thy present need change will
bear away, and what to-day thou ardently craveth in days
to come she will make the object of thy loathing.” [Letter
xii] Whether the untamed, extravagant, and dispro-
portionate energy shows itself in sensuality — in ab-
jectissimo loco — or in an overestimation and deification
of the most highly developed function, it is at bottom
the same, viz. barbarism. But naturally no insight of this
state can be gained while one is still hypnotized by the
object of action so that one ignores the How of the acting.
Identification with the one differentiated function
means that one is in a collective state ; not, of course, that
one is identical with the collective as is the primitive, but
collectively adapted; for “the judgment of all minds is
expressed by our own ”, in so far as our thought and speech
exactly conform to the general expectation of those whose
thinking is similarly differentiated and adapted. Further-
more, “the choice of every heart is represented by our
act,” just in so far as we think and do, as all desire it to be
thought and done. There is certainly a universal belief
and desire that that value is the best and most worth while
wherein an identity with the one differentiated function
is as fully achieved as possible ; for that brings the most
obvious social advantages, albeit the greatest disadvantages
to those minorities of our nature, which often constitute a
great portion of the individuality.
“ As soon as one affirm s ”, says Schiller, “ a primordial,
therefore necessary, antagonism of the two instincts, there
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
129
is of course no other means of preserving unity in mem fha-p
for him unconditionally to subordinate the sensuous to the reasoning
instinct. Mere uniformity can only result from this, not harmony,
and man still remains eternally divided." (pp. 61 ff.)
“ Because it costs much to remain true to one's principles
through every fluctuation of feeling, one seizes upon the more
comfortable expedient of consolidating the character through the
blunting of feeling ; for in sooth it is infinitely easier to obtain
peace from a disarmed adversary than to command a daring and
robust enemy. Very largely also this operation includes that
’process which we call * forming the man’ and this in the best
sense of the word, where it embraces the idea of an inner cultiva-
tion and not merely outer form. A man thus formed will indeed
be safeguarded from being mere crude nature or from appearing
as such ; but he will also be armoured by principle against every
sensation of nature, so that humanity will reach him as little
from without as from within." (pp. 67 ff.)
Schiller was also aware that the two functions, thinking
and affectedness (feeling-sensation), can substitute one
another (which happens, as we saw, when one function is
preferred).
“ He may shift the intensity which the active function de-
mands upon the passive one (affectedness), he can substitute the
formative instinct by the instinct for material, and convert the
receiving into a determining function. He can assign to the active
function (positive thinking) the extensity which belongs to the
passive one, he can entrench upon the instinct for material to the
benefit of the formative instinct and substitute the determin-
ing for the receiving function. In the first instance, never
will he be himself ; in the second, he will never be anything
else." (pp. 64 ff.)
In this yery remarkable passage much is contained
which we have already discussed. When the energy
belonging to positive thinking is bestowed upon “feeling-
sensation ”, which would be equivalent to a reversal of the
introverted type, the qualities of the undifferentiated,
archaic “feeling-sensation” become paramount, ie. the
individual relapses into an extreme relatedness, or identi-
fication with the sensed object. This state corresponds with
a so-called inferior extroversion , i.e. an extraversion which,
as it were, detaches the individual entirely from his ego
130 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
and dissolves him into archaic, collective ties and identifica-
tions. He is then no longer “himself”, but a mere
relatedness; he is identical with his object and conse-
quently without a standpoint. Against this condition the
introvert instinctively feels the greatest resistance, which,
however, is no sort of guarantee against his repeated and
unwitting lapse into it Under no circumstances should
this state be confused with the extraversion of an extra-
verted type, although the introvert is continually prone to
make this mistake and to show towards the true extra-
version that same contempt which, at bottom, he always
feels for his own extraverted relation 1 . The second
instance, on the other hand, corresponds with a pure
presentation of the introverted thinking type, who through
amputation of the inferior feeling-sensation condemns him-
self to sterility, i.e. he enters that state in which “ humanity
will reach him as little from without as from within
Here also, it is obvious that Schiller continues to write
purely from the standpoint of the introvert, because the
extravert, who possesses his ego not in thinking, but rather
in the feeling relation to the object, really finds himself
through the object, while the introvert loses himself in
it But when the extravert, proceeds to introvert, he
comes to his inferior relationship with collective ideas,
i.e. to an identity with collective thinking of an archaic,
concretistic quality, which one might describe as sensation-
presentation. He loses himself in this inferior function just
as much as the introvert in his inferior extraversion. Hence
the extravert has the same repugnance, fear, or silent
scorn for introversion as the introvert for extraversion.
Schiller senses this opposition between the two mechan-
isms — thus in his own case between sensation and thinking,
1 To avoid misconception, I would here like to observe that this
contempt does not concern the object, not at least as a rule, but merely
the relation to it.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
131
or, as he also says, between “ material and form ”, or again
“ passivity and activity ” (affectedness and active thinking) 1
— as unbridgeable. “The distance between sensation and
thinking” is “infinite” and “any sort of mediation is
absolutely inconceivable”. The .two “conditions are
opposed to each other, and can never be joined.” 2 But
both instincts are insistent, and as “energies” — as Schiller
himself in very modem fashion regards them* — they need,
and in fact, demand effective “ discharge “ The demands
of both the material and the formative instincts are a serious
matter ; for the one is related in cognition to the reality
while the other to the necessity of things.” 4 “But the
discharge of energy of the sensuous instinct must, in no
way, have the effect of a physical disability or a blunting
of sensation, which only deserves universal contempt — it
must be an act of freedom, an activity of the person,
tempering everything sensual by its moral intensity.”*
“ Only to the mind may sense give place.” It must follow,
then, that the mind may give place only in favour of sense.
Schiller, it is true, does not say this directly, but it is surely
implied where he says :
“ Just as little should this discharge of the formative instinct
have the effect of a spiritual disablement and a loosening of the
powers of thought and of will ; for this would mean a lowering
of mankind. Abundance of sensations must be its honourable
source ; sensuousness itself must maintain her province with
conquering power and resist the despotism which the mind with
its encroaching activity would willingly inflict upon her.”
In these words a recognition of the equal rights of
“sensuousness”* and spirituality is expressed. Schiller
1 i n contrast to the reactive thinking previously referred to.
t Letter XXIII, pp. 90 ff. * XIII, p. 68. « XV. p. 76.
* XIII, pp. 68 ff.
• " Sensuousness " unfortunately does not carry the ambivalence
that is contained in the German Sinnlichkeit, which has equally the
meaning of sensuality. It is, therefore, important to point out that
in all these latter quotations from Schiller the ambivalent significance
is definitely intended. [Translator]
132 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
therefore concedes to sensation the right to its own
existence. But, at the same time, we can also see in this
passage allusions to a still deeper thought, namely the
idea of a " reciprocity ” between the two instincts, a com-
munity of interest, qr symbiosis , as we should perhaps
prefer to call it, in which the waste-products of the one
would be the food-supply of the other. Schiller himself
says that “ the reciprocity of the two instincts consists in
this, that the effectiveness of the one both establishes and
restricts the effectiveness of the other, and that each in
its own separate sphere can reach its highest manifesta-
tion only through the activity of the other.” Hence, if
we follow out this idea, their opposition must in no way
be conceived as something to be done away with, but
must, on the contrary, be regarded as something useful
and life - promoting, which should be preserved and
strengthened. But this is a direct attack against the
predominance of the one differentiated and socially
valuable function, since it is the primary cause of the
repression and absorption of the inferior functions. This
would signify a slave-rebellion against the heroic ideal
which compels us, for the sake of one , to sacrifice the
remaining all , ’
If this principle, which as we know, was first especially
developed by Christianity for the spiritualizing of man
subsequently becoming equally effective in furthering his
materialization — were once finally broken, the inferior
functions would find a natural release and would demand,
rightly or wrongly, the same recognition as the differen-
tiated function. The complete opposition between sensu-
ousness and spirituality, or between the “ feeling-sensation”
and thinking of the introverted thinking type would
therewith be openly revealed. This complete opposi-
tion, as Schiller also allows, entails a reciprocal limitation,
equivalent psychologically to an abolition of the power
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 133
principle i.e. to a renunciation of the claim to a generally
valid standpoint on the strength of one differentiated and
generally adapted, collective function.
The direct outcome of this renunciation is individualism ,
i.e. the necessity for a realization of individuality, a realiza-
tion of man as he is. Let us hear how Schiller tries to
approach the problem. “This reciprocity of the two
instincts is indeed merely a problem of the reason ; it is
a task which man is able wholly to solve only through the
perfecting of his being. It is the idea, of his humanity in
the truest meaning of the word ; hence it is an absolute to
which in the issue of time he can constantly approach
without ever attaining.” 1 It is a pity that Schiller is so
conditioned by his type ; if it were not so, it could never
have occurred to him to look upon the co-operation of the
two instincts as a u problem of the reason ”, since opposites
are not to be united rationally : tertium non datur — that
is the very basis of their opposition. Then it must be that
Schiller understands by reason something else than ratio,
namely a higher and almost mystical faculty. Opposites
can be reconciled practically only in the form of com-
promise, i.e. irrationally , wherein a novum arises between
them, which, though different from both, has the power
to take up their energies in equal measure as an expression
of both and of neither. Such an expression cannot be
contrived; it can only be created through living. As a
matter of fact, Schiller also means this latter possibility, as
we see in the following sentence :
“ But should instances occur when he (man) proved at the
same time this double experience, wherein he was not only con-
scious of his freedom but also sensed his own existence ; when
feeling himself to be matter, he, at the same time, knew himself
to be spirit ; in this unique state and in no other would he gain a
complete vision of his humanity, and the object which evoked
this vision would serve as the symbol of his accomplished destiny .* 49
» Letter XIV , p. 69.
9 Letter XIV , p. 70.
134 SCHILLER ANB THE TYPE-PROBLEM
Thus, if the individual were able to live both faculties or
instincts at the same time, i.e. thinking by sensing and
sensing by thinking, out of that experience (which Schiller
calls the object) a symbol would arise which would express
his accomplished destiny, ue . his way upon which his Yea
and his Nay are reconciled.
Before we take a nearer survey of this idea, it would
be well for us to ascertain how Schiller conceives the
nature and origin of the symbol : “ The object of the
sensuous instinct is Life in its widest meaning ; a concept
that signifies all material being, and all things directly
present to the senses. The object of the formative instinct
is Form , , a concept that embraces all formal qualities of
things and all relations of the same to the thinking
function.” 1 The object of the mediating function is,
therefore, “ living form” according to Schiller; for this
would be precisely that symbol which unites the opposites :
“ a concept which serves to describe all aesthetic qualities
of phenomena, which embraces in a single word the thing
called beauty in its fullest significance But the symbol
also presupposes a function which creates symbols and,
while creating them, is an indispensable agent for their
apprehension. This function Schiller calls a third instinct,
the play instinct ; it has no similarity with the two opposing
functions ; it none the less stands between them and does
justice to both natures, always provided (which Schiller
does not mention) that sensation and thinking are recog-
nised as serious functions. But there are many with whom
neither sensation nor thinking is wholly serious ; in which
case seriousness must hold the middle place instead of
play. Although in another place Schiller denies the exist-
ence of a third mediating instinct (p. 61), we will never-
theless assume, though his conclusion is somewhat at fault,
his intuition to be all the more accurate. For, as a matter
i Letter XV, p. 73 .
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 135
of fact, something does stand between the opposites, though
it has become invisible in the differentiated type. In the
introvert it lies in what I have termed “ feeling-sensation
On account of its relative repression, the inferior function
is only partly attached to consciousness ; its other part is
dependent upon the unconscious. The differentiated
function is most fully adapted to outer reality ; it is
essentially the reality-function; hence it is as much as
possible shut off from any admixture of phantastic elements.
These elements, therefore, become linked up with the
inferior functions, which are similarly repressed. For this
reason the sensation of the introvert, which is usually
sentimental, has a very strong tinge of unconscious phantasy.
The third element, in which the opposites merge, is on
the one hand creative, and on the other receptive, phantasy-
activity* It is this function which Schiller terms the play-
instinct, by which he means more than he actually says.
He exclaims: “For, let us admit once and for all, man
only plays when he is a man in the fullest meaning of the
word, and he is only completely man when he is playing.” 1
For him the object of the play instinct is beauty. “ Man
shall only play with beauty , and only with beauty shall he
play?
Schiller was actually aware what it might mean to
assign the chief position to the * play-instinct \ The
release of repression, as we have already seen, effects a
recoil of the opposites upon each other plus a compensa-
tion, which necessarily results in a depreciation of the
hitherto highest value. For culture, as we understand it
to-day, it is certainly a catastrophe when the barbaric side
of the European comes uppermost, for who can guarantee
that such a man, when he begins to play, shall forthwith
take the aesthetic motive and the enjoyment of pure beauty
as his goal? That would be an entirely unjustifiable
1 Letter XV, p. 79.
136 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
anticipation. As a result of the inevitable debasement
of cultural achievement a very different result must first
be expected. Therefore with justice Schiller observes:
“The aesthetic play instinct will, therefore, in its first
essays be scarcely recognizable, because the sensual
instinct with its capricious temper and savage lusts cease-
lessly intervenes. Thus we see crude taste avidly seizing
upon the new and startling, the motley, adventurous, and
bizarre, even upon the violent and savage, and fleeing
nothing so eagerly as simplicity and calm .” 1 From this
passage we must conclude that Schiller was aware of the
danger of this conversion. It also follows that he cannot
himself acquiesce in the solution found, but feels a com-
pelling need to give man a more substantial foundation
for his manhood than the somewhat insecure basis which
an aesthetic-playful attitude can offer him. That must
indeed be so. For the opposition between the two
functions, or function-groups, is so great and so inveterate
that play alone could hardly suffice to counterbalance all
the difficulty and seriousness of this conflict — similia
similibus curantur : a third factor is needed, which at the
least can equal the other two in seriousness. With the
attitude of play all seriousness must vanish, whereby
the possibility of an absolute determinability presents
itself. At one time the instinct is pleased to be allured
by sensation, at another by thinking; now it will play
with objects, and now with ideas. But in any case it will
not play exclusively with beauty, for in that case man
would be no longer a barbarian but already aesthetically
educated, whereas the actual question at issue is: How is
he to emerge from the state of barbarism ? Above all else,
therefore, it must be definitely established where man
actually stands in his innermost being. A priori he is as
much sensation as he is thinking; he is in opposition to
1 LetUr XXVII, p. 156.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 137
himself— hence must he stand somewhere in between. In
his deepest essence, he must be a being who partakes of
both instincts, yet may he also differentiate himself from
them in such a way that, although he must suffer the
instincts and in given cases submit to them, he can also
apply them. But first he must differentiate himself from
them, as from natural forces to which he is subject but
with which he does not regard himself identical. Con-
cerning this Schiller expresses himself as follows : “ This
inherency of the two root-instincts in no way contradicts
the absolute unity of the mind, provided only that man
distinguishes himself from both instincts. Both certainly
exist and work in him, but in himself he is neither sub-
stance nor form, neither sensuousness nor reason .” 1
Here, it seems to me, Schiller refers to something very
important, viz. the separability of an individual nucleus ,
which can be at one time the subject and at another the
object of the opposing functions, though ever remaining
distinguishable from them. This discrimination is itself as
much an intellectual as a moral judgment. In the one
case it happens through thinking, in the other through
feeling. If the separation does not succeed, or if it is not
even attempted, a dissolution of the individuality into the
pairs of opposites inevitably follows, since it becomes
identical with them. The further consequence is an
estrangement with oneself, or an arbitrary decision in
favour of one or the other side, together with a violent
suppression of its opposite. This train of thought belongs
to a very ancient argument, which, so far as my knowledge
goes, received its. most interesting formulation, psycho-
logically, at the hands of Synesius, the Christian bishop of
Ptolemais and pupil of Hypatia. In his book De Somniis 2
he assigns to the “spiritus phantasticus ” practically the
1 Letter XIX, p. 99.
* I quote from the Latin translation of Marsilius Fidnus, 1497.
138 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
same psychological r61e as Schiller to the play-instinct,
and I to creative phantasy ; only his mode of expression
is metaphysical rather than psychological, which, being an
ancient form of speech, is hardly suitable for our purpose.
Synesius speaks of it thus: “Spiritus phantasticus inter
aetema et temporalia medius est, quo et plurimum
vivimus.” (“The phantastic spirit comes between the
eternal and the temporal, in which [spirit] are we also
most alive”.) The “spiritus phantasticus” combines the
opposites in itself ; hence it also participates in instinctive
nature upon the animal plane, where it becomes instinct
and incites to daemoniac desires :
“ Vendicat enim sibi spiritus hie aliquid velut proprium,
tanquam ex vicinis quibusdam ab extremis utrisque, et quae tam
longe disjuncta sunt, occurrunt in una natura. Atqui essentiae
phantasticae latftudinem natura per multas rerum sortes ex-
tendit, descendit utique usque ad animalia, quibus non adest
ulterius intellectus. . . Atque est animalis ipsius ratio, multaque
per phantasticam hanc essentiam sapit animal, &c. . . Tota genera
daemonum ex ejusmodi vita suam sortiunter essentiam. Tlla.
enim ex toto suo esse imaginaria sunt, et iis quae Hunt intus,
imaginata.** 1
Psychologically, demons are interferences from the
unconscious, t.e. spontaneous irruptions into the continuity
of the conscious process on the part of unconscious com-
plexes. Complexes are comparable to demoris which
fitfully harass our thoughts and actions, hence antiquity
and the Middle Ages conceived acute neurotic disturb-
ances as possession. When, therefore, the individual stands
consistently upon one side, the unconscious ranges itself
1 (“ For this spirit borrows of both extremes and makes of them
something of its own, so that they which formerly lay far apart, now
appear in one nature. In many parts of the existing order has Nature
extended the realm of the power of phantasy. It even descends to
the creatures who do not yet possess reason. . , In truth, it represents
the intelligence of the creature, and the creature understands much
by means of this power of phantasy. . . All sorts of demons cferive
their essence from this kind of life. For they are in their whole nature
imaginary and in their origin are inwardly fashioned.*')
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 139
squarely upon the other, and rebels — which in all probability
was what must have befallen the neo-Platonic or Christian
philosophers, in so far as they represented the standpoint
of exclusive spirituality. Particularly valuable is the
allusion to the phantastic nature of the demons. It is*
as I have previously discussed, precisely the phantastic
element which becomes associated in the unconscious with
the repressed functions. Hence, if the individuality (a
term which more briefly expresses the individual nucleus)
is not differentiated from the opposites, it becomes identi-
fied with them, and is thereby inwardly rent, i.e. a torment-
ing disunion takes place. Synesius expressed this as
follows : “ Proinde spiritus hie animalis, quern beati spirit-
ualem quoque animam vocaverunt, fit deus et daemon
omniformis et idolum. In hoc etiam anima pcenas exhibet.”
(“ This spiritual essence, which devout men have also called
the vital flame, is both God and idol and demon of every
shape. Herein also doth the soul receive her chastise-
ment.”) Through participation in the instinctive forces
the spirit becomes “ a God and a demon of many shapes ”.
This strange idea becomes immediately intelligible when
we recollect that in themselves sensation and thinking are
collective functions, in which through non-differentiation
the individuality (the spirit, according to Schiller) has
become dispersed. Thus the individuality becomes a
collective being, i.e. god-like, since God is a collective idea
of an all-pervading nature. “ In this state ”, says Synesius,
“the soul suffereth torment”. But deliverance is won
through differentiation ; because the spirit, when it has
become “ humidus et crassus ” ( “ wet and fat ”) sinks into
the depths, i.e. becomes entangled in the object ; but when
purged through pain it becomes dry and hot and again
ascends ; for it is just this fiery quality which distinguishes
it from the humid nature of its subterranean abode.
Here the question naturally arises, by virtue of what
140 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
power can the indivisible, ue. the individuality, maintain
itself against the separative instincts ? That it can do so
upon the line of the play-instinct even Schiller, at this
point, no longer believes; for here we are dealing with
something serious, some considerable power which can
effectively detach the individuality from the opposites.
From the one side comes the call, of the highest value, the
highest ideal ; while from the other comes the enchant-
ment of the strongest desire: “Each of these two root-
instincts ”, says Schiller, “ as soon as it reaches a state of
development, must of necessity strive towards the satis-
faction of its own nature ; but, because both are necessary
and since both must pursue antagonistic objects, this
two-fpld urgency is mutually suspended, and between the
two the will asserts a complete freedom. Thus it is the
will which behaves as a power towards both instincts,
but neither of the two can, of itself, behave as a power
towards the other. There is in man no other power but
his will, . and only that which abolishes man, death and
every destroyer of consciousness, can abolish this inner
freedom.” 1
That the opposites must cancel each other is logically
correct, but practically it is not so, for the instincts stand
in tnutual and active opposition, causing, temporarily,
insoluble conflicts. The will could indeed decide, but
only if we anticipate that condition which must first be
reached. But the problem how man may emerge out
of barbarism is not yet solved ; neither is that condition
established which alone could lend the will such efficacy
as would reconcile the two root-instincts. It is in
fact the sign of the barbarous state that the will has a
one-sided determination through one function ; yet the
will must none the less have a content, an aim. And
how is this aim to be reached ? How else than through a
» LetUr XIX, pp. 99, 100.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 141
preliminary psychic process by which either an intellectual
or an emotional judgment, or a sensuous desire, shall
provide the will with its content and its goal? If we
allow sensuous desire as a motive of will, we act in
harmony with the one instinct against our rational
judgment Yet, if we transfer the adjustment of the
dispute to the rational judgment, then even the fairest
and most considerate allotment must always be based
upon rational grounds, whereby the rational instinct is
conceded a prerogative over the sensuous.
The will, in any case, is determined more from this
side or from that, just so long as it is dependent for its
content upon one side or the other. But, to be really
able to decide the matter, it must be grounded on a
mediate state or process, which shall give it a content
that is neither too near nor too remote from either
side. According to Schiller’s definition, this must be a
symbolical content, since the intermediate position between
the opposites can be reached only by the symbol. The
reality presupposed by the one instinct differs from the
reality of the other. To the other it would be quite
unreal or apparent and vice versa. But this dual character
of real and unreal is inherent in the symbol If only
real, it would not be a symbol, since it would then be
a real phenomenon and therefore removed from the nature
of the symbol. Only that can be symbolical which
embraces both. If altogether unreal, it would be mere
empty imagining, which, being related to nothing real,
would be no symbol.
The rational functions are, by their nature, incapable
of creating symbols, since- they produce only a rational
product necessarily restricted to a single meaning, which
forbids it from also embracing its opposite. The sensuous
functions are equally unfitted to create symbols, because,
from the very nature .of the object, they are also confined
14 #
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
to single meanings which comprehend only themselves and
neglect the other. To discover, therefore, that impartial
basis for the will, we must appeal to another element,
where the opposites are not yet definitely divorced but
still preserve their original unity. Manifestly this is not
the case with consciousness, since the whole nature of
consciousness is discrimination , distinguishing ego from
non-ego, subject from object, yes from no, and so forth.
The separation into pairs of opposites is entirely due to
conscious differentiation ; only consciousness can recognize
the suitable and distinguish it from the unsuitable and
worthless. It alone can declare one function valuable
and another worthless, thus favouring one with the power
of the will while suppressing the claims of the other.
But, where no consciousness exists, where the still un-
conscious instinctive process prevails, there is no reflection,
no pro et contra, no disunion, but simple happening,
regulated instinctiveness, proportion of life. (Provided,
of course, that instinct does not encounter situations to
which it is still unadapted. In which case damming up,
affect, confusion, and panic arise).
It would, therefore, be unavailing to appeal to con-
sciousness for a decision of the conflict between the
instincts. A conscious decree would be quite arbitrary,
and could never give the will that symbolic content which
alone can create an irrational settlement of a logical
antithesis. For this we must go deeper ; we must descend
into those foundations of consciousness which have still
preserved their primordial instinctiveness ; namely into the
unconscious, where all psychic functions are indistinguish-
ably merged in the original and fundamental activity of
the psyche. The lack of differentiation in the unconscious
arises in the first place from the almost direct association
of the brain centres among themselves, and in the second
from the relatively weak energic value of unconscious
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 143
elements 1 . It may be concluded that they possess re-
latively little energy from the fact that an unconscious
element at once ceases to remain subliminal as soon as it
receives a stronger accent of value ; this enables it to rise
above the threshold of consciousness, which it can achieve
only by virtue of a specific informing energy. There-
with it becomes an “ irruption ”, a “ spontaneously arising
presentation” (Herbart). The strong energic value of the
conscious contents has an effect like intensive illumination,
whereby distinctions become clearly perceptible and mis-
takes eliminated. In the unconscious, on the contrary,
the most heterogeneous elements, in so far as they possess
only a vague analogy, may become mutually substituted
for each other, just by virtue of their relative obscurity
and frail energic value. Even heterogeneous sense-
impressions coalesce, as we see in the “ photisms ” (Bleuler)
of “audition colorize”. Language also contains not a
few of these unconscious blendings, as I have shown for
example with sound, light, and emotional states . 2
The unconscious, therefore, might be that neutral
region of the psyche where everything that is divided
and antagonistic in consciousness flows together into
groupings and formations. These, when examined in the
light of consciousness, reveal, a nature that exhibits the
constituents of the one side as much as the other ;
they nevertheless belong to neither side, but occupy
an independent middle station. This mediate position,
constitutes for consciousness both their value and their
worthlessness ; worthless in so far as nothing clearly
distinguishable emerges instantaneously from their forma-
tion, thus leaving consciousness embarrassed as to its
purpose ; but valuable in so far as their undifferentiated
1 Cf. H. Nunberg's work: On the Physical Accompaniments of
Association Processes (in Jung's Studies in W ord-A ssociation, p. 531)
t Psychology of the Unconscious , pp. 179 ff.
144
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
state gives them that symbolic character which is essential
to the content of a mediatory will.
Besides the will, which is entirely dependent upon its
content, man gains a further resource, then, in the un-
conscious, that maternal womb of creative phantasy, which is
constantly potent to fashion symbols in the natural process
of elemental psychic activity, symbols which can serve in
the determination of the mediating will. I say "can”
advisedly, because the symbol does not eo ipso step into
the breach, but remains in the unconscious just so long as
the energic value of the conscious content exceeds the value
of the unconscious symbol. Under normal conditions
this is, moreover, always the case ; while under abnormal
conditions a reversal of value takes place, whereby the
unconscious receives a higher value than the conscious.
In such a case the symbol penetrates the surface of
consciousness, without however being taken up by the
conscious will and the executive conscious functions,
since these, on account of the reversal of values, have
now become subliminal The unconscious has become
superliminal \ and an abnormal mental state, a mental
disorder, has declared itself.
Under normal conditions, therefore, energy must be
artificially added to the unconscious symbol, in order to
increase its value and thus bring it to consciousness. This
occurs (and here we return again to the idea of differentia-
tion provoked by Schiller) through a differentiation of the
Self from the opposites. This differentiation is equivalent
to a detachment of the libido from both sides, in such
measure as the libido is disposable. For the libido invested
in the instinct is only to a certain degree disposable,
just so far in fact as the power of the will extends. This
is represented by that quantity of energy which is under
the "free” disposition of the ego. In such a case the will
has the Self as a possible aim. In such measure as further
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
*45
development is arrested by the conflict is this goal the
more possible. In this case, the will does not decide
between the opposites, but merely for the Self i.e. the dispos-
able energy is withdrawn into the Self— in other words it
is introverted . This introversion simply means that the
libido is held with the Self and is prevented from participa-
tion in the conflicting opposites. Since the outward way
is barred to it, it turns naturally towards thought, whereby
it is again in danger of becoming entangled in the conflict.
The act of differentiation and introversion involves the
detachment of disposable libido, not merely from the
outer object alone but also from the inner object,
namely ideas. It becomes wholly objectless; it is no
longer related to anything that could be a conscious
content; it therefore sinks into the unconscious, where
it automatically takes possession of the waiting phantasy
material, which it activates and urges towards conscious-
ness.
Schiller’s expression for the symbol, viz. “ living form n
is happily chosen, because the phantasy material thus
animated contains images of the psychological development
of the individuality in its successive states, thus providing
a sort of model or representation of the further way
between the opposites. Although it may frequently happen
that the discriminating conscious activity cannot find much
in these images that can be immediately understood, such
intuitions nevertheless contain a living power, which may
have a determining effect upon the will. For the content
of the will receives determinants from both sides ; as a
result the opposites after a certain time recuperate. But
the resumed conflict again demands the same process,
whereby a further stage is continually made possible.
This function of mediation between the opposites I have
termed the transcendent function , , by which I mean nothing
mysterious, but merely a combined function of conscious
146 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
and unconscious elements, or, as in mathematics, a common
function of real and imaginary factors \
Besides the will — whose importance must not be thereby
denied — we have also creative' phantasy, an irrational,
instinctive function, which alone has the power of yielding
the will a content of such a character as can unite the
opposites. It is this function which Schiller intuitively
apprehended as the source of symbols ; but he termed
it * play-instinct and therefore could make no further
use of it for the motivation of the will. In order to obtain
this content of the will he went back to the intellect and in
doing so allied himself to one side. But he is surprisingly
near to our problem when he says :
" The power of sensation must, therefore, be destroyed before
law (i.e. rational will) can be established. It is not forthwith
accomplished when something has a beginning which before
had none. Man cannot immediately pass from sensation to
thinking ; he must take a step backwards, since only when one
determinant is abolished can its opposite take its place. He must
be momentarily free from every determinant and pass through a
condition of pure determinability. Accordingly he must in some
way return to that negative state of pure non-determination
which he enjoyed before ever any sort of impression was made
upon his senses. But that was a state entirely empty of content,
whereas now our chief concern is to harmonize an equal non-
determination and an unlimited determinability with the greatest
possible fullness ; because forthwith from this condition must
something positive result. The determination, which he receives
through sensation, must therefore be maintained, since he must
not lose reality ; but at the same time, in so far as it is a restriction,
it should be abolished, because an unlimited determinability must
be permitted.” — Letter XX, p. 104.
With the help of what has been said above, this difficult
passage can easily be understood, if only we bear in mind
1 I must emphasize the point that 1 am here presenting only this
function in principle. Further contributions to this very complex
problem, for which, in particular, the manner of accepting unconscious
material into consciousness has a fundamental importance, will be
found in my work : La structure de Vinconscient (. Archives de Psychologic,
Dec. 1916) : also in my paper : The Psychology of Unconscious Pro-
cesses ( Collected Papers , ch. xiv)
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 147
the fact that Schiller has a constant inclination to seek the
solution with the rational will. This factor must be allowed
for. What he says is then perfectly clear. The step back-
wards is the differentiation from the antagonistic instincts,
the detachment and withdrawal of the libido both from the
inner and outer object. Here, of course, above all, Schiller
has the sensuous object in mind, since, as already explained,
his constant aim is to reach over towards the side of rational
thinking ; for to him this seems quite indispensable for the
determination of the contents of the will. But, in spite of
this, the necessity to abolish every determinant still urges
itself upon him. In this necessity the detachment from the
inner object, the idea, is implied ; otherwise it would be
impossible to achieve a complete absence of content and
determinant together with that original state of uncon-
sciousness, where a discriminating consciousness has not
yet distinguished subject from object. It is obvious that
Schiller had in mind that same process which I have
described as introversion into the unconscious.
“Unlimited determinability ” clearly means something
very like the unconscious, a state in which everything can
have effect upon everything else without distinction. This
empty state of consciousness must correspond with the
“ greatest possible fullness This fullness, as the counter-
part of conscious emptiness, can only be the content of the
unconscious, since no other content is given. In this way
Schiller expresses the union of the unconscious with the
conscious, and “from this state something positive" must
result. This “positive” something is for us the symbolic
determinant of the will. For Schiller it is a mediate condi-
tion, through which the reconciliation of sensation and
thinking is brought about He calls it a “ middle disposi-
tion ”, in which sensuousness and reason are equally active ;
but for this very reason their determining power is mutually
cancelled ; their opposion effects a negation.
148 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
This suspension of the opposites produces an emptiness,
which we call the unconscious. Because it is not deter-
mind by the opposites this condition is susceptible to
every determinant. Schiller calls it an “ aesthetic ” condition
[Letter xx., p. 105]. It is worth noting that he thereby
overlooks the fact that sensuousness and reason cannot
both be “ active ” in this condition, since, as Schiller himself
says, they are already suspended through mutual negation.
But, since something must be active and Schiller has no
other function at his disposal, the pairs of opposites must,
according to him, again become active. Their activity
naturally persists, but since consciousness is “empty”
they must necessarily be in the unconscious 1 . But this
concept Schiller lacks — accordingly he becomes contra-
dictory at this point. His mediating aesthetic function
would thus be equivalent to our symbol-forming activity
(creative phantasy). Schiller defines the “aesthetic dis-
position ” as the relation of a thing “ to the totality of our
various faculties (mental functions), without its being a
definite object for any one individual faculty ”. He would
here perhaps have done better, instead of this vague
definition, to return to his earlier concept of the symbol,
since the symbol has this quality, that it is related to all
the psychic functions without being a definite object of
any single one. Having now reached this mediating dis-
position, Schiller perceives that “ it is henceforth possible
for man, in the way of nature, to make what he will of
himself — that the freedom to be what he ought to be is
wholly restored to him.”
Because by preference Schiller proceeds intellectually
and rationally he falls a victim to his own conclusion.
This is already revealed in his choice of the expression
“aesthetic”. If he had been acquainted with Indian
1 As Schiller rightly says, in the aesthetic state man is nothing.
Letter XX, p. 108.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 149
literature, he would have seen that the primordial image
which floated before his inner mind had a very different
meaning from the “ aesthetic” one. His intuition found
the unconscious model which from oldest times has
exercized its living force in our unwitting minds. Yet
he interprets it as “aesthetic”, although he himself had
previously emphasized its symbolic character. The
primordial image to which I refer is revealed in that
growth of oriental thought which centres around the
Brahman-A tman teaching in India, and in China found its
philosophical representative in Lao-Tze.
The Indian conception teaches liberation from the
opposites, by which every sort of affective state and
emotional hold to the object is understood. The libera-
tion succeeds a detachment of the libido from all contents,
whereby a state of complete introversion results. This
psychological process is characteristically called tapas , a
term which can best be rendered as self-brooding. This
expression clearly pictures the state of meditation without
content in which the libido is supplied to the Self some-
what in the manner of incubating heat. As a result of
the complete detachment of every function from the object,
there necessarily arises in the inner man (the Self) an
equivalent of objective reality, a state of complete identity
of inner and outer which may be technically described as
the tat tzvam asi (that art thou). Through the fusion of
the Self with the relations to the object there proceeds the
identity of the Self (Atman ) 1 with the essence of the
world (i.e. with the relations of the subject to the object,)
so that the identity of the inner with the outer Atman
becomes recognized. The concept of Brahman differs
only slightly from the concept of Atman, since in Brahman
the idea of the Self is not explicitly given : it is, as it were,
1 Atman has been defined as the soul of Self-hood — the highest
principle of life in the universe — the Divine germ in man. [Translator]
150 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
a more general, almost indefinable, state of identity
between the inner and the outer.
Parallel, in a certain sense, with tapas is the concept
yoga ; by which, not so much a state of meditation as a
conscious technique for the attainment of the tapas state,
is to be understood. Yoga is a method by which the
libido is systematically ‘ drawn in ’ and thereby released
from the bondage of the opposites. The aim of tapas
and yoga is the establishing of a mediate condition from
which the creative and redeeming element emerges. For
the individual, the psychological result is the attainment
of Brahman, the “supreme light,” or “ dnanda” (bliss).
This is the final aim of the redeeming practice. But at
the same time this process is also interpreted in terms
of cosmogony, since from Brahman-Atman as the
foundation of the world all creation proceeds. The
cosmogonic myth, like every myth, is a projection of
unconscious processes. The existence of this myth proves,
therefore, that in the unconscious of the tapas practitioner
creative processes take place, which can be interpreted as
new adjustments towards the object. Schiller says : “ So
soon as it is light in man, it is no longer night without.
So soon as it is still in him, lulled is the storm in the
universe : the contending forces of nature find rest within
lasting bounds. Little wonder then that the immemorial
poems speak of this great event in the inner man as of a
revolution in the outer world, etc.” [Letter XXV, p. 135].
Through yoga the relations to the object become
introverted, £e. through a deprivation of energic value
they sink into the unconscious, where, as described above,
they can engage in new associations with other un-
conscious contents, and, thus transformed, they rise again,
when the tapas practice is completed, towards the object.
Through the transformation of the relation to the object,
the object now acquires a new aspect. It is as though
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 151
newly-created ; hence the cosmogonic myth is a speaking
symbol for the final result of the tapas exercise. In the
almost exclusively introverted direction of the Indian
religious exercise the new adaptation to the object has,
of course, no significance, but it persists as unconsciously
projected cosmogonic myth doctrine, without achieving
any practical reorganization of life. In this respect the
Indian religious attitude stands, as it were, diametrically
opposed to the Christian attitude of Western lands ; since
the Christian principle of love is extraverted and absolutely
demands the outer object. The former principle gains the
riches of knowledge, the latter the fullness of works.
In the concept of Brahman there is also contained the
concept of Rita (right course), the regulated order of the
world. In Brahman, as the creative essence and founda-
tion of the world, things come upon the right way, since
in It they are eternally dissolved and recreated; out of
Brahman proceeds all development upon the ordered way.
The concept of Rita leads us on to that of Tao in Lao-
Tze. Tao is the right way, law-abiding ordinance, a
middle road between the opposites, freed from them and
yet uniting them in itself. The purpose of life is to
travel this middle path and never to deviate towards the
opposites.
The ecstatic factor is entirely absent with Lao-Tze ; it
is replaced by a superior philosophic clarity, an intellectual
and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze; a
wisdom which presents what is simply the highest attain-
able to spiritual superiority, and therefore also lacks the
chaotic element in so far as the air it breathes is distant
as the stars from the disorder of this actual world. It
tames all that is wild, without purifying and transforming
it into something higher.
One could easily object that the analogy between
Schiller’s train of thought and these apparently remote
ideas is rather far-fetched. But it must not be forgotten
that not so long after Schiller’s time, these very ideas
found a powerful utterance in the genius of Schopenhauer
and became so intimately wedded to the Western Germanic
mind that they have persisted and thriven even to the
present day. In my view it is of small importance that
the Latin translation of the Upanishads by Anquetil du
Perron (1802) was accessible to Schopenhauer, whilst
Schiller with the very sparing information of his time had
at least no conscious connection with these sources 1 . I
have seen enough in my own practical experience to
become convinced that direct communication is not
essential in the formation of such relationships. Indeed,
something very similar is to be seen in the fundamental
ideas of Meister Eckehart, as also in a measure in the
thought of Kant, where we find a quite astonishing
similarity with the ideas of the Upanishads, without the
faintest trace of influence either direct or indirect It is
the same here as with myths and symbols, which can
arise autochthonously in every corner of the earth and
are none the less identical, just because they are fashioned
out of the same world-wide human unconscious, whose
contents are infinitely less variable than are races and
individuals.
There is another reason urging me to draw a parallel
between Schiller’s ideas and those of the East ; and this is,
that the thoughts of Schiller might be rescued from the
too narrow cloak of aesthetism *. ^Esthetism is not fitted
to solve the exceedingly serious and difficult problem of
the education of man ; for it always presupposes the very
thing it should create, namely the capacity for the love of
1 Schiller died in 1805.
* I employ the word ' aesthetism ’ as an abbreviated expression
for r aesthetic world-philosophy \ Hence, I do not mean that aesthetism
with the evil accompaniment of aesthetic action and sentimentality
which might perhaps be described as aestheticism.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
*53
beauty. It actually prevents a deeper searching of the
problem, since it always looks away from the evil, the
ugly, and the difficult, and aims at enjoyment, even though
it be of a noble kind. iEsthetism, therefore, lacks all
moral motive power, because au fond it is still only refined
hedonism. Schiller is indeed at some pains to introduce
an unconditional moral motive, but without any convincing
success ; since, just because of his aesthetic attitude, it is
impossible for him to perceive the kind of consequences
which a recognition of the other side of human nature
would entail. For the conflict which thereby arises involves
such a confusion and suffering for the individual, that,
although in the most favourable cases his vision of the
beautiful may enable him persistently to repress its opposite,
he does not thereby escape from it ; so that, even at the
best, the old condition is once more established. In order
to help a man out of this conflict, an attitude other than
the aesthetic is needed. This is revealed nowhere more
clearly than in this parallel with the ideas of the East.
The Indian religious philosophy has apprehended this
problem to its very depth and has demonstrated what
category of remedies is needed to render a solution of the
conflict possible. For its achievement the highest moral
effort, the greatest self-denial and sacrifice, the most
intense religious earnestness and saintliness, are needed.
Schopenhauer, with every regard for the aesthetic, has
most definitely brought out just this aspect of the problem.
We must not, however, imagine that the words ‘ aesthetic,’
‘ beauty,* etc., called up the same associations for Schiller
as they do for us. Indeed, I am not putting it too stongly
when I affirm that for Schiller * beauty * was a religious ideal.
Beauty was his religion. His “ aesthetic disposition ** might
equally well be rendered "religious devotion.** Without
definitely expressing anything of the sort, and without
explicitly describing his central problem as a religious one,
*54
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
Schiller’s intuition none the less arrived at the religious pro*
blem ; it was, however, the religious problem of the primitive,
which he even discusses at some length in his investiga-
tion, without ever pressing along this line to the end.
It is worth noting that in the further pursuit of his
ideas the question of the * play-instinct ’ fell quite into the
background in favour of the idea of the aesthetic disposition,
which apparently reached an almost mystical valuation
This, I believe, is not accidental, but has a quite definite
foundation. Oftentimes it is just the best and most
profound ideas in a work which most stubbornly resist
a clear apprehension and formulation, even though they
are suggested in various places and presumably, therefore,
should be sufficiently ripe for a lucid and characteristic
synthesis. It seems to me that here there is a difficulty of
this sort Into the concept of the “ aesthetic disposition ”
as a mediatory creative state, Schiller himself instils ideas
which at once reveal the depth and the seriousness of this
concept. And yet, quite as clearly, he discerned the " play-
instinct” as that long-sought mediating activity. Now
one cannot deny that these two conceptions stand in a
certain opposition to each other, for play and seriousness
are scarcely compatibles. Seriousness comes through deep
inner necessity, but play is its more external expression,
that aspect of it which is turned toward consciousness. It
is not a question, of course, of a will to play , but of having
to play> a playful manifestation of phantasy through inner
necessity, without the compulsion of circumstances, without
even the compulsion of will. It is a serious play \ And
i Compare what Schiller says : On the Necessary Limitations in
the Use of Beautiful Form [Essays, p. 241]. " For since, in the man of
aesthetic refinement, the imaginative faculty, even in its free play,
is directed according to laws, and sense approves of enjoyment only
with the consent of reason, the reciprocal favour is easily required of
reason, that it shall be directed, in the earnestness of its law-giving,
in accordance with the interests of the imagination and not command
the will, without the concurrence of the sensuous instincts."
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
155
yet it is certainly play in its outer aspect, seen from the
view-point of consciousness, t\e. from the standpoint of
collective judgment. But it is play from inner necessity.
That is the ambiguous quality which clings to everything
creative.
If the play expires in itself without creating anything
durable and living, it is only play ; but in the alternative
event it is called creative work. Out of a playful move-
ment of elements, whose associations are not immediately
established, there arise groupings which an observant and
critical intellect can only subsequently appraise. The
creation of something new is not accomplished by the
intellect, but by the play-instinct from inner necessity.
The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Hence one can easily regard every creative activity
whose potentialities remain hidden from the many as play.
There are, indeed, very few creative men at whom the
reproach of playing has not been cast For the man of
genius, and Schiller certainly was this, one is inclined to
approve of this point of view. But he himself wished to
go beyond the exceptional man and his kind, and to reach
the common man, that he too might share that help and
deliverance which the creator from sternest inner necessity
cannot in any case avoid. The possibility of extending
such a point of view to the education of man in general is
not, however, guaranteed as a matter of course ; at least it
would seem not to be.
For a decision of this question we must appeal, as in
all such cases, to the testimony of the history of human
thought. But before doing so we should again realize
from what basis we are attacking the question. We have
seen how Schiller demands a release from the opposites
even to the point of a complete emptying of consciousness,
in which neither sensations, feelings, ideas, nor purposes
play any sort of r61e. The condition thus striven for is
156 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
a state of undifferentiated consciousness, or a conscious
state, where, from a depotentiation of energic values, all
contents have forfeited their distinctiveness. But a real
consciousness is possible only where values effect a dis-
crimination of contents. Where discrimination is wanting,
no real consciousness can exist. Accordingly, such a state
might be called "unconscious”, although the possibility
of consciousness is at all times present. It is a question
therefore of an “ abaissement du niveau mental” (Janet)
of an artificial nature; hence also a certain resemblance
to yoga and to states of hypnotic “ engourdissement
So far as I know, Schiller has nowhere expressed
himself as to his actual view concerning the technique —
if one may use the word — for the induction of the aesthetic
mood. The example of Juno Ludovisi that he mentions
incidentally in his letters [p. 81] shows us a state of
“ aesthetic devotion ” whose character consists in a complete
surrender to and “ feeling-into ” the object of contemplation.
But such a state of devotion lacks the essential character-
istic of being without content and determinant. Neverthe-
less, in conjunction with other passages, this example
shows that the idea of “ devotion ” was constantly present
in Schiller’s mind 1 . Which brings us once more to the
province of the religious phenomenon; but at the same
time we are permitted a glimpse of the actual possibility
of extending such a view-point to the common man. The
state of religious devotion is a collective phenomenon , which
does not depend upon individual endowment
There are, however, yet other possibilities. We have
seen that the empty state of consciousness, i.e. the uncon-
scious condition, is brought about by a submersion of the
libido into the unconscious. Dormant in the unconscious
there lie relatively accentuated contents, namely remini-
1 *' Whereas the feminine God demands our adoration, the god-like
woman also kindles our love. 1 ' — l.c., p. Si.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 157
scence-complexes of the individual past ; above all the
parent-complex, which is identical with the childhood-
complex- in general. Through devotion, *.*. through the
sinking of the libido into the unconscious, the childhood-
complex is reactivated, whereby the reminiscences of
childhood, especially the relations to the parents, are again
infused with life. From the phantasies proceeding out
of this reactivation there dawns the birth of the Father
and Mother divinities, and there awakens the religious
child-like relations to God with the corresponding child-
like feeling. Characteristically, it is the symbols of the
parents that become conscious and by no means always
the images of the actual parents ; a fact which Freud
explains as the repression of the parent imago through
resistance to incest. I am of the same mind upon this
interpretation, and yet I believe it is not exhaustive, since
it overlooks the extraordinary significance of this symbolical
replacement. Symbolization in the shape of the God-image
means an immense step forward from the concretism, the
sensuousness, of reminiscence ; inasmuch as the regression
to the parent, through the acceptance of the “ symbol ” as
a real symbol, is straight-way transformed into a pro-
gression; it would remain a regression if the so-called
symbol were to be finally interpreted merely as a sign of
the actual parents and were thus robbed of its independent
character 1 .
Humanity came to its gods through accepting the
reality of the symbol, i.e. it came to the reality of the idea>
which alone has made man lord of the earth. Devotion,
as Schiller correctly conceived it, is a regressive movement
of the libido towards the primordial, a diving down into
the source of first beginnings. Emerging as an image of
the commencing progressive movement there rises the
* I have discussed this point at length in my book Psychology of the
Unconscious.
158 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
symbol , , which represents a comprehensive resultant of
all the unconscious factors. It is “ living form ”, as
Schiller calls the symbol, a God-image as history unfolds
it It is not, therefore, an accident that our author has
straightway chosen a divine image, the Juno Ludovisi,
as a paradigm. Goethe makes the divine images of
Paris and Helen float up from the tripod of the
mothers — on the one hand the rejuvenated pair, but
on the other the symbol of a process of inner union
which is precisely what Faust passionately craves for
himself as the supreme inner atonement This is
clearly shown in the subsequent scene, and it is equally
manifest in the further course of the Second Part As
we can see in this very example of Faust, the vision of
the symbol is a significant indication as to the further
course of life, an alluring of the libido towards a still
distant aim, but which henceforth operates unquenchably
within him, so that his life, kindled like a flame, moves
steadily onwards to the far goal This is the specific
life-promoting significance of the symbol. This . is the
value and meaning of the religious symbol. I am speak-
ing, of course, not of symbols that are dead and stiffened
by dogma, but of living symbols that rise from the
creative unconscious of living man.
The immense significance of such symbols can be
denied only by the man whose history of the world begins
at the present day. It ought to be superfluous to speak
of the significance of symbols, but unfortunately this is
not so, for the spirit of our time believes itself superior
to its own psychology. The moral and hygienic stand-
point of our day must always know whether such and
such a thing is harmful or useful, right or wrong. A real
psychology cannot concern itself with such queries: to
recognize how things are in themselves is enough.
The forming of symbols arising out of the state oi
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 159
devotion is, again, one of those collective religious pheno-
mena which are not bound up with individual endowment.
Hence, also in this respect the possibility of extending
the view-point, mentioned above, to the ordinary man
may be assumed. I think I have now sufficiently demon-
strated at least the theoretical possibility of Schiller’s
point-of-view for general human psychology. For the
sake of completeness and clarity I might add here that
the question of the relation of the symbol to consciousness
and the conscious conduct of life has long engaged my
mind. I have reached the conclusion that, in view of its
great significance as a representative of the unconscious,
too slight a value should not be given to the symbol.
We know from daily experience in the treatment of
nervous subjects what an eminently practical significance
unconscious interventions possess. The greater the dis-
sociation, i.£. the more the conscious attitude becomes
aloof from the individual and collective contents of the
unconscious, the more powerful are the harmful and even
dangerous inhibitions or reinforcements of conscious con-
tents from the side of the unconscious. From practical
considerations, therefore, the symbol must be conceded
a not inconsiderable value. But if we grant the symbol
a value, whether great or small, the symbol thereby
obtains conscious motive power, i.e. it is perceived, and its
unconscious libido-charge is therewith given opportunity
for development in the conscious conduct of life. Herein
according to my view — a not inessential practical advan-
tage is gained : namely, the co-operation of the unconscious,
its participation in the conscious psychic activities and
therewith the elimination of disturbing influences from
the unconscious.
This common function, the relation to the symbol, I
have termed the transcendent function . I cannot under-
take, at this stage, to elucidate this problem at all ade-
x6o SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
quately. To do so, it would be absolutely necessary to
produce all the material that comes up as the result of
unconscious activity. The phantasies hitherto described
in the special literature give no conception of the symbolic
creations we are here dealing with. There exist, however,
not a few examples of these phantasies in the literature
of belles-lettres ; but these of course are not " purely ”
observed and presented — they have undergone an intensive
"aesthetic” elaboration. Among all these examples I
would single out two works of Meyrink for special atten-
tion, viz. Der Golem and Das grune Gesicht. But the
treatment of this side of the problem I must reserve for
a later investigation.
Although these conclusions concerning the mediatory
state were, so to speak evoked by Schiller, we have already
gone far beyond his conceptions. In spite of the fact
that he discerned the opposites in human nature with
keenness and depth, he remained stuck at an early stage
in his attempt at solution. . For this failure his terminus
"aesthetic disposition” is in my opinion, not without
blame. For Schiller makes the "aesthetic disposition”
practically identical with the beautiful, thus transveying
the feeling into the mood \ Therewith not only does he
take cause and effect together, but he also gives to the
state of indeterminability, quite against his own definition,
a single-meaning definiteness, since he makes it equivalent
with the beautiful. Moreover, from the very outset the
edge is taken off the mediating function, since beauty
immediately prevails over ugliness, whereas it is equally
a question of ugliness. Schiller defines as the “ aesthetic
quality” of a thing that it should be related "to the
totality of our various faculties ”. Consequently "beautiful”
cannot coincide with " aesthetic”, since our different faculties
also vary aesthetically : some are ugly, some beautiful, and
* Letter XXIII, p. 108.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 161
only an incorrigible idealist and optimist could conceive
the “totality” of human nature as simply “beautiful”
To be quite accurate, human nature is just real; it has
its light and its dark sides. The sum of all colours is grey
— light upon a dark background or dark upon light.
From this conceptual immaturity and inadequacy we
may also explain the circumstance that it is not at all
clear how this mediatory state shall be established. There
are numerous, passages containing the unequivocal mean-
ing that in the “ enjoyment of pure beauty”, the mediatory
state is brought about. Thus Schiller says :
“ Whatever flatters our senses with immediate sensation
opens our yielding and shifting emotion to every impression,
while it also makes us in equal measure less fitted for effort.
Whatever strains our power of thought and invites us to abstract
ideas strengthens our mind to every sort of resistance, but it
also hardens it and robs us of susceptibility in the same degree
as it helps us to a greater spontaneity. For this reason the one
just as much as the other leads necessarily, in the last resort, to
exhaustion .... If, on the contrary, we have surrendered
ourselves to the enjoyment of pure beauty, we are, in such a
moment, master of our passive and active faculties in equal
measure and we can apply ourselves to seriousness and to play,
to rest and to motion, to yielding and to resistance, to abstract
thought and to perception with the same ease.”
This presentation stands in abrupt opposition to the
provisions of the “aesthetic state” previously laid down,
where the man was to be “ naught ”, undetermined, whilst
here he is in the highest degree determined by beauty
(“ surrendered to it ”). It would not repay us to pursue
this question further with Schiller. Here he meets a
boundary common both to himself and his time, which it
was impossible for him to overstep, for everywhere he
encounters the invisible “ugliest man”, whose unveiling
was reserved for our age in the person of Nietzsche.
Schiller was intent on making the sensuous into a
rational being, because from the outset he makes man
162 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
aesthetic. He himself says [Letter xiii, p. 118]: “We
must change the nature of the sensuous man” (p. 120);
again he says : “ Man must submit the physical life to
form ”, he must “ carry out his physical destiny according
to the laws of beauty” (p. 12 1), “upon the indifferent
plane of the physical life man must begin his moral
being” (p. 123), he must “though still confined within his
sensuous bounds, begin his rational freedom ”, “ upon his
inclinations he must impose the law of his will ”, “ he must
learn to desire nobly ”(p. 124).
That “ must ” of which our author speaks is the familiar
‘ought’, which is always invoked when one can see no
other way. Here again we meet inevitable barriers. It
would be unjust to expect one individual mind, were he
never so great, to vanquish this gigantic problem, a problem
which only times and peoples can resolve ; and even so by
no conscious purpose, but as only fate can solve it.
The greatness of Schiller’s thought lies in his psycho-
logical observation, and his intuitive apprehension of the
things observed. There is yet another of his trains of
thought I would like to mention, which abundantly
deserves consideration. We have seen above that the
middle state is characterized by effecting a “positive”
something, viz. the symbol r The symbol combines anti-
thetic elements within its nature ; hence it also reconciles
the real-unreal antithesis, because on the one hand it
is certainly a psychological reality (on account of its
effectiveness), while on the other it corresponds with no
physical reality. It is a fact and yet a semblance . This
circumstance is brought out clearly by Schiller, in order to
append to it an apologia for semblance \ which in every
respect is significant.
“ The greatest stupidity and the highest understanding
have herein a certain affinity with each other, that they both
1 Letter XXVI, p, m.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 163
Bee k the real and are both quite insensitive to mere semblance.
Only by the immediate presence of an object in sensation is
the former tom from its apathy, and only through the relating
of its ideas to the facts of experience is the latter brought to
rest ; in a word, foolishness cannot soar above reality and in-
telligence cannot remain below truth. Inasmuch, then, as need
for reality and devotion to the real are merely the products of a
human defect, indifference to reality and interest in semblance
represent a true progress for humanity and a decisive step towards
culture.” 1
When speaking just now about an appraisement of
the symbol’s value, I showed the practical advantage that
an appreciation of the unconscious possesses : namely, we
exclude the unconscious disturbance of conscious functions
when, from the first, we have taken the unconscious into
account through a consideration of the symbol It is
familiar that the unconscious, when not realized, is ever at
work casting a false glamour over everything : it appears
to us always upon objects , because everything unconscious is
projected. Hence, when we are able to understand the
unconscious as such, we strip away the false appearance
from objects, and this can only promote truth. Schiller says:
“ This human right to rule man exercises in the mastery
of semblance, and the more rigidly he severs mine from thine, the
more scrupulously he separates form from essence, and the more
independence he learns to give to the same, the more does he not
merely enlarge the kingdom of beauty — he is actually establishing
the boundaries of truth, for he cannot cleanse away appearance
from the face of reality without at the same time delivering
reality from semblance .” — Letter xxvi, p. 146.
“ The effort to achieve this independence of semblance demands
a greater power of abstraction, a greater freedom of heart and
more energy of will than is required of man in the effort to confine
himself in reality, and already must he have left this behind him
if he would achieve that.” — ibid., p. 151.
2. A Discussion on Naive and Sentimental Poetry
For a long time it seemed to me as though Schiller’s
division of poets into naive and sentimental 2 were a classi-
. 1 Letter XXVI , p. 142.
s Schiller, Ueber naive und senHmentalische Dichtung.
164
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
fication that harmonized with the points of view here
expounded. After mature reflection, however, I have come
to the conclusion that this is not so. Schiller’s definition
is very simple : “ the naive poet is Nature , the sentimental
poet seeks her". This easy formula is enticing, since it
affirms two different kinds of relation to the object. It
might also be put like this: He who seeks or desires
Nature as an object does not possess her ; such a man
would be the introvert, and, vice versa, he who already is
Nature herself, standing therefore in the most intimate
relation with the object, would be the extravert. But a
rather arbitrary interpretation such as this would have
little in common with Schiller’s point of view. His division
into naive and sentimental is one which, in contrast to our
type-division, is not merely concerned with the individual
mentality of the poet, but rather with the character of his
creative activity, that is, with its product The same poet
can be sentimental in one poem, naive in another. Homer
certainly is naive throughout, but how many of the moderns
are not, for the most part, sentimental ? Evidently Schiller
feels this difficulty, and therefore asserts that the poet is
conditioned by his time, not as an individual but as a
poet Thus he says : “ All poets, who are really such, will
respectively belong to the naive or sentimental to the
degree in which the quality of the age in which they flower,
or mere accidental circumstances exert an influence upon
their general make-up and upon their passing emotional
mood”. Consequently it is not a question of funda-
mental types for Schiller, but rather of certain char-
acteristics or qualities of the individual product Hence
it is at once obvious that an introverted poet, on occasion
can be just as naive as he is sentimental. It therefore
follows that to identify respectively naive and sentimental
with extravert and introvert would be quite beside the
point, in so far as the problem of types is concerned.
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 165
Not so, however, in so far as it is a question of typical
mechanisms.
(a) The naive attitude
I will first present the definitions which Schiller gives
of this attitude. It has already been mentioned that the
naive poet is “ Nature”. He simply “ follows Nature and
sensation and confines himself to the mere copying of
reality ” (/.£., p. 248). “ With naive representations we
delight in the living presence of objects in our imagination ”
(p. 250) “Naive poetry is a boon of Nature. It is a
happy throw, needing no bettering when it succeeds, but fit
for nothing when it has failed ” (p. 303). « The naive genius
must do everything through his nature: he can do little
through his freedom; he will accomplish his idea, only
when Nature works in him as an inner necessity” (p. 304).
Naive poetry “is the child of life and unto life it returns”
(P 3°3)- The naive genius depends wholly upon “ experi-
ence ”, upon the world, with which he is in " direct touch
He “needs succour from without” (p. 305). To the naive
poet the “common nature” of his surroundings can
“become dangerous”, since “sensibility is always more
or less dependent upon the external impression, and only
a constant activity of the productive faculty, which is not
to be expected of human nature, would be able to prevent
mere material from committing him, at times, to a blind re-
ceptivity. But whenever this is the case, the poetic feeling
will be commonplace” (pp. 307 ff.). “The naive genius
allows Nature unlimited sway in him” (p. 314). From
this definition the dependence of the naive poet upon the
object is especially clear. His relation to the object has
a compelling character, because he introjects the object, i.e.
unconsciously identifies himself with it, or has, as it were,
a priori identity with it L^vy-Bruhl describes this
relation to the object as “participation mystique”. 1 This
t Lbs junctions mentaUs dans Us sorites inf insures.
1 66
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
identity is always derived from an analogy between the
object and an unconscious content. One could also say
that the identity comes about through the projection of an
unconscious analogy-association upon the object An
identity of this nature has always a compelling character,
because it is concerned with a certain libido-sum, which,
like every libido-discharge working from the unconscious,
has a compelling character in relation to the conscious,
i.e. it is not disposable to consciousness. The naive attitude
is, therefore, in a high degree conditioned by the object ;
the object operates ‘ independently in him, as it were ;
it fulfils itself in him because he himself is identical with
it To a certain extent, therefore, he gives his function
of expression to the object, and presents it in a certain
way, not in the least actively or intentionally, but because
it is represented in him. He is himself Nature: Nature
creates in him the product. He allows Nature to hold
absolute sway in him. Supremacy is given to the object
To this extent is the naive attitude extraverted.
(b) The sentimental attitude
We mentioned above that the sentimental poet seeks
Nature. He “ reflects upon the impression objects make
upon him, and upon that reflection alone is the emotion
based with which he himself is exalted, and which likewise
affects us. Here the object is related to an idea, and from
this relation alone his poetic power is derived ” (/.£., p. 249).
He “ is always involved with two opposing presentations
and sensations, with reality as a finite boundary, and with
his idea as an infinite : the mixed feeling that he provokes
will always bear witness to this dual origin” (p. 250).
“ The sentimental mood is the . result of the effort to
reproduce the naive sensation, in accordance with its
content, under the conditions of reflection ” (p. 301).
“ Sentimental poetry is the product of abstraction ”
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
167
(p. 3 ° 3 )- “As a result of his effort to remove every
limitation from human nature the sentimental genius is
exposed to the danger of abolishing human nature
altogether ; not merely mounting, as he must and should,
above every sort of defined and restricted reality to the
farthest possibility — to idealize in short — but even trans-
cending possibility itself; in other words, to become
pkantasticair “The sentimental genius forsakes reality,
in order to rise to the world of ideas and command his
material with greater freedom” (p. 314).
It is easy to see that the sentimental poet, in contrast
with the naive, is characterized by a reflective and abstract
attitude towards the object. He “reflects” about the
object, because he is abstracted from it Thus he is, as
it were, severed from the object a priori as soon as his
production begins ; it is not the object that works in him,
but he himself is operative. He does ‘ not, however, work
inwardly into himself, but outwardly beyond the object
He is distinct from the object, not identical with it ; he
seeks to establish his relation to it, “to command his
material.” Proceeding from this, his separateness from
the object, there comes that impression of duality which
Schiller refers to ; for the sentimental poet creates from
two sources, namely from the object or from his perception of
it, and from himself. The external impression of the object
is, for him, not something unconditioned but material
which he handles in accordance with his own contents.
Hence he stands above the object, and yet has a relation
to it ; it is not, however; the relation of impressionability,
but of his own free choice he bestows a value or quality
upon the object His is therefore an introverted attitude.
With the designation of these two attitudes as intro-
verted and extraverted we have not, however, exhausted
Schiller's idea. Our two mechanisms are basic phenomena
of a rather general nature, which only vaguely outline
1 68 SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM
the specific. For the understanding of the naive and
sentimental types we must call two further principles to
our aid, namely the elements sensation and intuition . I
shall discuss these functions in greater detail at a later
stage. I only wish to say at this point that the naive
is characterized by a preponderance of the sensational
element, the sentimental by the intuitive. Sensation
fastens to the object, it even draws the subject into the
object; hence for the naive type the "danger” consists
in his subjection to the object. Intuition, being a per-
ception of one’s own unconscious processes, withdraws
from the object; it mounts above it, ever seeking to
command its material, and to shape it, even violently, in
accordance with the subjective view-point, though without
awareness of the -fact The danger for the sentimental
type, therefore, is a complete severance from reality, and
a going-under into the fluid phantasy world of the
unconscious.
(r) The Idealist and the Realist
In the same essay Schiller’s reflections lead him to a
conception of two psychological human types. He says :
“ This brings me to a very remarkable psychological antagon-
ism among men in an age of progressive civilization, an antagon-
ism which, because it is radical and rooted in the innate emotional
constitution, is the cause of a sharper cleavage among men
than the accidental quarrel of interests could ever bring about ;
an antagonism which robs the poet and artist of all hope of making
a universal appeal — although this is his task; which makes it
impossible for the philosopher, in spite of every effort, to be
universally convincing ; yet, none the less, this is involved in the
very idea of a philosophy — and which, finally, will never permit
a man in practical life to see his mode of action universally
applauded : in short, an opposition which is responsible for
the fact that no work of the mind and no deed of the heart can
make a decisive success with one class, without thereby drawing
upon it a condemnation from the other. This opposition is,
without doubt, as old as the beginning of culture, and to the end
it can hardly be otherwise, save in rare individual subjects,
such as have always existed and, it is to be hoped, will always
SCHILLER AND THE TYPE-PROBLEM 169
exist. But although this lies in the very nature of its operation,
that it frustrates every attempt at an adjustment, because no
section can be brought to see either a deficiency upon its own
side, or a reality upon the other; it is nevertheless always a
sufficient gain to follow up such an important division to its
final source, and thus, at least, to bring the actual point at issue
to a simpler formulation 1 '
It follows conclusively from this passage that through
the observation of antagonistic mechanisms Schiller arrived
at the conception of two psychological types, which claim
the same significance in his presentation as I ascribe to
the introvert and extravert. With regard to the mutual
relation between the two types established by myself, I
can endorse almost word for word what Schiller says of
his. Schiller, in harmony with what I pointed out earlier,
reaches the type from the mechanism, since he “severs
alike from the naive and sentimental character a poetic
quality that is common to both”. If we carry out this
operation we shall have to subtract the gifted, creative
character ; then to the naive poet there remains the hold
to the object and its autonomy in the subject, while
to the sentimental there remains the superiority over the
object, which is expressed in a more or less arbitrary
judgment or treatment of the object. Schiller says :
“ After this there remains of the former (the naive) nothing
else, theoretically, but a dispassionate spirit of observation and
a solid dependence upon the equable testimony of the senses ;
and, practically, a resigned submission to the necessity of Nature.
... Of the sentimental character there remains nothing but a
restless spirit of speculation which insists upon the unconditioned
in all cognitions ; and, in practice, a moral severity which insists
upon the absolute in every act of will. Whoever counts himself
among the former class can be called a realist , and whoever
numbers himself with the latter an idealist
Schiller’s further elaborations concerning his two types
refer almost exclusively to the familiar phenomena of the
realistic and idealistic attitudes, and are therefore without
interest for our investigation.
CHAPTER III
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAPJ
The problem discerned, and indeed partially worked out,
by Schiller was resumed in a fresh and original way by
Nietzsche in his work: Die Geburt der Tragodie , dating
from 1871. This early work is more nearly related to
Schopenhauer and Goethe than to Schiller. But it at
least appears to share aesthetism and Hellenism with
Schiller, pessimism and the motive of deliverance with
Schopenhauer, and unlimited points of contact with
Goethe’s Faust . Among these connections, those with
Schiller are naturally the most significant for our purpose.
Yet we cannot leave Schopenhauer without paying tribute
to the way in which he achieved reality for those dawning
rays of Eastern knowledge which in Schiller only emerge
as insubstantial wraiths. If we disregard the pessimism
that springs from a contrast with the Christian joy in
faith, and certainty of redemption, Schopenhauer’s doctrine
of deliverance is seen to be essentially Buddhistic. He
was captured by the East. This step was undoubtedly a
contrast reaction to our occidental atmosphere. It is, as
we know, a reaction that still persists to a very consider-
able extent in various movements more or less completely
orientated towards India. This pull towards the East
caused Nietzsche to halt in Greece. He, too, felt Greece
to be the middle point between East and West To this
extent he is in touch with Schiller — but how utterly
different is his conception of the Grecian character ! He
sees the dark foil upon which the serene and golden world
X70
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 171
of Olympus is painted. “In order to make life possible,
the Greeks from sheer necessity had to make these Gods
“The Greek knew and felt the terror and awfulness of
existence: to be able to live at all he had to interpose
the shining, dream-borne Olympian world between himself
and that dread. That monstrous mistrust of the titanic
powers of Nature, the Moira pitilessly enthroned above
all knowledge, the vulture of Prometheus the great lover
of man, the awful fate of the wise Oedipus, the family
curse of the Atridse which drove Orestes to matricide —
this dread was ever being conquered anew through that
artist’s middle world of Olympus, or was at least veiled
and withdrawn from sight.” 1 The Greek “ serenity,” that
smiling Heaven of Hellas, seen as a glamourous illusion
hiding a forbidding background — this discernment was
reserved for the moderns; a weighty argument against
moral aesthetism 1
Nietzsche here takes up a standpoint differing
significantly from Schiller’s. What one might have
guessed in Schiller, namely that, his letters on aesthetic
education were also an attempt to deal with his own
problems, becomes a complete certainty in this work of
Nietzsche: it is a “profoundly personal” book. Whereas
Schiller, almost timidly and with faint colours, begins to
paint light and shade, apprehending the opposition in his
own psyche as “naive” versus “sentimental,” while ex-
cluding everything that belongs to the background and
abysmal profundities of human nature, Nietzsche’s appre-
hension takes a deeper grasp and spans an opposition,
whose one aspect yields in nothing to the dazzling beauty
of the Schiller vision ; while its other side reveals infinitely
darker tones, which certainly enhance the effect of the
light, but allow still blacker depths to be divined.
1 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy , transl. by W. H. Haussmann.
p. 35 (Edinburgh 1909)-
172 THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
Nietzsche calls his fundamental pair of opposites: the
A pollonian-Dionysian. We must first try to picture to
ourselves the nature of this opposite pair. To this end I
shall select a group of citations by means of which the
reader — even though unacquainted with Nietzsche's work
— will be in a position to form his own judgment about
it, and at the same time to criticize mine.
1. “ We shall have gained much for the science of aesthetics,
when the view is once finally reached — not merely the logical
insight, but the immediate certainty — that the continuous develop-
ment of art is bound up with the duality of the Apollonian and the
Dionysian : in much the same way as generation depends upon
the duality of the sexes, involving perpetual conflicts with only
periodically intervening reconciliation.” (p. 21)
2. 44 From their two art-deities, Apollo and Dionysos, we
derive our knowledge that an immense opposition existed in the
Grecian world, both as to origin and aim, between the art of the
shaper, the Apollonian, and the Dionysian non-plastic art of
music. These two so different tendencies run side by side, for
the most part in open conflict with each other, ever mutually
rousing the other to new and mightier births in which to per-
petuate the w arri ng antagonism that is only seemingly bridged
by their common term * art 9 ; until, finally, by a metaphysical
miracle of the Hellenic ' will', they appear paired one with the
other and in this mating the equally Dionysian and Apollonian
creation of Attic tragedy is at last brought to birth.” (p. 22)
For the purpose of fuller characterization Nietzsche
compares the two “ tendencies ” by means of the peculiar
psychological states they give rise to, namely dreaming
and frenzy . The Apollonian impulse produces a state that
may be compared with the dream, while the Dionysian
creates a condition that is akin to frenzy . By dreaming,
as Nietzsche himself explains, he essentially understands
the “inner vision”, the “lovely semblance of the dream
world”. Apollo “governs the beauteous illusion of the
inner world of phantasy ” ; he is “ the god of all shaping
faculties He is measure, number, limitation, the mastery
of everything savage and untamed. “ One might almost
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 173
describe Apollo as the splendid divine image of the
principii individuation is? (p. 26).
The Dionysian, on the contrary, is the freeing of
unmeasured instinct, the breaking loose of the unbridled
dynamis of the animal and the divine nature ; hence in the
Dionysian choir man appears as satyr, god above and
goat below. It represents horror at the annihilation of
the principle of individuation, and at the same time
“ rapturous delight” at its destruction. The Dionysian
is, therefore, comparable to frenzy, which dissolves the
individual into collective instincts and contents, a dis-
ruption ot the secluded ego by the world. In the Diony-
sian, therefore, man again finds man ; “ estranged, hostile,
subjugated Nature celebrates once more her feast of
reconciliation with her lost son, man.” (p. 26). Every
man feels himself “ one ” with his neighbour (“ not merely
united, reconciled, and merged ”). His individuality must
therefore, be entirely suspended. * Man is no longer the
artist — he has become the work of art”. “ All the artistry
of Nature here reveals itself in the ecstasies of frenzy”,
(p. 27.) Which means that the creative dynamis, the
libido in instinctive form, takes possession of the indi-
vidual as an object and uses him as a tool, or expression
of itself. If one might conceive the natural being as a
“ product of art ”, then of course a man in the Dionysian
state has become a natural work of art; but, inasmuch
as the natural being is also emphatically not a work of
art in the ordinary meaning of the word, he is nothing
but sheer Nature, unbridled, a raging torrent, not even an
animal that is restricted to itself and its own laws. I
must emphasize this point both in the interests of clarity
and of subsequent discussion, since, for some reason
Nietzsche has omitted to make this clear, and has thereby
shed over the problem a deceptive aesthetic veiling, which
at certain places he himself has instinctively to draw aside.
174 THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
Thus, for instance, where he speaks of the Dionysian
orgies: “In almost every case, the essence of these
festivals lay in an exuberant sexual licence, whose waves
inundated every family hearth with its venerable tradi-
tions; the most savage beasts of nature were here un-
chained, even to the point of that disgusting alloy of lust
and cruelty ”, etc. (p. 30)*
Nietzsche considers the reconciliation of the Delphic
Apollo with Dionysos as a symbol of the reconciliation
of this antagonism within the breast of the civilized Greek.
But here he forgets his own compensatory formula, accord-
ing to which the Gods of Olympus owe their splendour
to the darkness of the Grecian soul. The reconciliation
of Apollo with Dionysos would, according to this, be a
“beauteous illusion”, a desideratum, evoked by the heed
of the civilized half of the Greek in the war with his
barbaric side, that very element which broke out un-
checked in the Dionysian state.
Between the religion of a people and its actual mode
of life there always exists a compensatory relation ; if this
were not so, religion would have no practical significance
at all. Beginning with the sublime moral religion of the
Persians co-existing with the notorious dubiousness —
even in antiquity — of the Persian manner of life, right
down to our ‘ Christian ’ epoch, where the religion of love
assisted in the greatest butchery of the world’s history:
wherever we turn we find evidence of this rule. We may,
therefore, conclude from this very symbol of the Delphic
reconciliation an especially violent cleavage in the Grecian
character. This would also explain that craving for de-
liverance which gave the mysteries their immense meaning
for the social life of Greece, and which, moreover, was
completely overlooked by earlier admirers of the Grecian
world. They contented themselves with naively attributing
to the Greeks what they themselves lacked.
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 175
Thus in the Dionysian state the Greek was anything
but a * work of art ’ ; on the contrary, he was gripped by
his own barbaric nature, robbed of his individuality, dis-
solved into all his collective constituents, made one with
the collective unconscious (through the surrender of his
individual goal), identified with “the genius of the race,
even with Nature herself”. To the Apollonian side which
had already achieved a substantial domestication of Nature,
this frenzied state that made a man forget both himself
and his manhood and turned him into a mere creature of
instinct, must have been altogether despicable; for this
reason a violent conflict between the two instincts was
inevitable. Supposing the instincts of civilized man were
let loose! The culture-enthusiast imagines that only
beauty would stream forth. Such a notion proceeds from
a profound lack of psychological knowledge. The dammed-
up instinct-forces in civilized man are immensely more
destructive, and hence more dangerous, than the instincts
of the primitive, who in a modest degree is constantly
living his negative instincts. Consequently no war of the
historical past can rival a war between civilized nations
in its colossal scale of horror. It will not have been other-
wise with the Greeks. It was precisely from a living sense
of the gruesome that the Dionysian- Apollonian reconcilia-
tion gradually came to them — “through a metaphysical
miracle ”, as Nietzsche says at the beginning. This utter-
ance, as well as that other where he says that the opposi-
tion in question “ is only seemingly bridged by their
common term ‘ art 9 " must be kept clearly in mind. It 1 is
well to remember this sentence in particular, because
Nietzsche, like Schiller, has a pronounced inclination to
ascribe to art the mediating and redeeming r61e. The
result is that the problem remains stuck in the aesthetic — the
ugly is also “ beautiful ” ; even the evil and atrocious may
wear a desirable brilliance in the false glamour of the
i?6 THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
aesthetically beautiful. Both in Schiller and in Nietzsche,
the artist nature, with its specific faculty for creation and
expression is claiming the redeeming significance for itself.
And so Nietzsche quite forgets that- in this battle between
Apollo and Dionysos, and in their ultimate reconciliation,
the problem for the Greeks was never an aesthetic but a
religious question. The Dionysian satyr-feasts, according
to every analogy, were a sort of totem-feast with an identifi-
cation backward to a mythical ancestry or directly to the
totem animal. The cult of Dionysos had in many ways a
mystical and speculative tendency, and in any case
exercised a very strong religious influence. The fact that
Greek tragedy arose out of the original religious ceremony
is at least as significant as the connection of our modern
theatre with the medieval passion-play with its exclusively
religious roots ; such a consideration, therefore, scarcely
permits the problem to be judged on its purely aesthetic
aspect. iEsthetism is a modern glass, through which the
psychological mysteries of the cult of Dionysos are seen
in a light in which they were certainly never seen or
experienced by the ancients. With Nietzsche, as with
Schiller, the religious point-of-view is entirely overlooked,
and its place is taken by the aesthetic. These things have
their obvious aesthetic side, which one cannot neglect . 1
Yet if one gives medieval Christianity a purely aesthetic
appreciation, its true character is debased and falsified,
just as much, indeed, as if it were viewed exclusively from
the historical standpoint A true understanding can emerge
only when equal weight is given to all sides ; no one would
1 JEsthetism can, of course, replace the religious function. But
how many things are there which could not do the same ? What
have we not all come across at one time or another as a surrogate for
a lacking religion ? Even though aesthetism may be a very noble
surrogate, it is none the less only a compensatory structure in place
of the real thing that is wanting. Moreover, Nietzsche's later “ con-
version ” to Dionysos shows very dearly that the aesthetic surrogate
did not stand the test of time.
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 177
wish to maintain that the nature of a railway-bridge is
adequately comprehended from a purely aesthetic angle.
In adopting the view, therefore, that the conflict between
Apollo and Dionysos is purely a question of antagonistic
art-tendencies, the problem is shifted onto aesthetic grounds
in a way that is both historically and materially unjustifi-
able; whereby it is submitted to a partial consideration
which can never do justice to its real content
This shifting of the problem must doubtless have its
psychological cause and purpose. One need not seek
far for the advantages of this procedure: the aesthetic
estimation immediately converts the problem into a
picture which the spectator considers at his ease, admiring
both its beauty and its ugliness, merely reflecting the
passion of the picture, and safely removed from any actual
participation in its feeling and life. The aesthetic attitude
shields one from being really concerned, from being
personally implicated, which the religious understanding
of the problem would entail. The same advantage is
ensured to the historical manner of approach, which
Nietzsche himself criticizes in a series of unique passages K
The possibility of taking such a prodigious problem
* a problem with horns,” as he calls it, merely aesthetically
is of course very tempting, since its religious understanding,
which in this case is the only adequate one, presupposes
an experience either now or in the past to which the
modem man can indeed rarely pretend. Dionysos, how-
ever, seems to have taken vengeance upon Nietzsche.
Let us compare his Attempt at a Self-criticism , which
bears the date 1886 and prefaces The Birth of Tragedy :
“What indeed is Dionysian? In this book there lies the
answer, a ‘ knowing one * speaks there, the initiate and
disciple of his God”. But that was not the Nietzsche
1 Nietzsche, On the Utility and Advantage of History for Life ,
Part ii : Occasional Papers .
I7« THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
who wrote The Birth of Tragedy ; at that time he was
moved aesthetically, while he became Dionysian only at
the time of writing Zarathustra, not forgetting that
memorable passage with which he concludes his Attempt
at a Self-criticism ; “Lift up your hearts, my brother,
high, higher ! And neither forget the legs ! Lift up also
your legs, ye good dancers, and better still : let ye also
stand on your heads ! ”
In spite of his aesthetic self-protection, the singular
depth with which Nietzsche grasped the problem was
already so close to the reality that his later Dionysian
experience seems an almost inevitable consequence. His
attack upon Socrates in The Birth of Tragedy is aimed at
the rationalist, who proves himself impervious to Dionysian
orgiastics. This reaction corresponds with the analogous
error into which the aesthetic standpoint always falls, i.e
it holds itself aloof from the problem. But even at that
time, in spite of the aesthetic viewpoint, Nietzsche had an
intuition of the real solution of the problem; as, for
instance, when he wrote that the antagonism was not
bridged by art, but by a “metaphysical miracle of the
Hellenic ‘ will ’ ” He writes “ will ” in inverted commas,
which, considering how strongly he was at that time
influenced by Schopenhauer, we might well interpret
as referring to the concept of the metaphysical will.
" Metaphysical ” has for us the psychological significance
of “ unconscious If, then, we replace “ metaphysical ”
in Nietzsche’s formula by “ unconscious ”, the desired key
to this problem would be an unconscious “ miracle”.
A “miracle” is irrational; the act itself therefore is an
unconscious irrational happening, a shaping out of itself
without the intervention of reason and conscious purpose ;
it just happens, it grows, like a phenomenon of creative
Nature, and not as a result of the deep probing of human
wits ; it is the fruit of yearning expectation, faith and hope.
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 179
At this point I will leave this problem for the time
being, as we shall have occasion to discuss it in fuller
detail in the further course of our inquiry. Let us proceed
instead to a closer examination of the Apollonian and
Dionysian conceptions with regard to their psychological
attributes. First we will consider the Dionysian. The
presentation of Nietzsche at once reveals it as an unfolding,
a streaming upward and outward, a “ diastole ”, as Goethe
called it ; it is a motion embracing the world, as Schiller
also presents it in his ode An die Freude:
“ Seid umschlungen, Millionen.
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt/' *
and further :
“ Freude trrnken alle Wesen
An den Brtisten der Natur ;
Alle Guten, alle Bdsen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Kftsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund geprtift im Tod ;
Wollust war dem Wurm gegeben
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.” *
That is Dionysian expansion. It is a flood of mightiest
universal feeling, which bursts forth irresistibly, intoxi-
cating the senses like strong wine. It is a drunkenness in
the highest sense.
In this state the psychological element sensation , , whether
it be sensation of sense or of affect, participates in the
highest degree. It is a question, therefore, of an extra-
version of those feelings which are inextricably bound up
1 (“ Be embraced, oh ye millions.
Be this kiss for all the world.”)
* (“ Joy doth every creature drink.
At Nature’s flowing bosom ;
Neither good nor evil shrink.
To tread her path of blossom.
Kisses and the wine she gave,
A friend when Death commandethu
Lust was for the worm to have,
'Fore God the Cherub standeth.”)
180 THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
with the element of sensation ; for this reason we define it
as feeling-sensation. What breaks forth in this state has
more the character of pure affect, something instinctive
and blindly compelling, finding specific expression in an
affection of the bodily sphere.
In contrast to this, the Apollonian is a perception of
the inner image of beauty, of measure, of controlled and
proportioned feelings. The comparison with the dream
clearly indicates the character of the Apollonian attitude :
it is a state of introspection, of inner contemplation towards
the dream world of eternal ideas : it is therefore a state
of introversion .
So far the analogy with our mechanisms is indeed
unarguable. But, if we were to content ourselves with the
analogy, we should acquiesce in a limitation of outlook
that does violence to Nietzsche’s ideas ; we should have laid
them in a Procrustean bed.
We shall in the course of our investigation see that
the state of introversion, in so far as it becomes habitual,
always involves a differentiated relation to the world
of ideas, while habitual extraversion entails a similar
relation to the object We see nothing of this differentia-
tion in Nietzsche’s ideas. The Dionysian feeling has the
thoroughly archaic character of affective sensation. It
is not therefore pure feeling, abstracted and differentiated
from the instinctive into that mobile element, which in
the extraverted type is obedient to the commands of reason,
lending itself as her willing instrument Similarly
Nietzsche’s conception of introversion is not concerned
with that pure, differentiated relation to ideas which is
abstracted from perception — whether sensuously deter-
mined or creatively achieved — into abstract and pure form.
The Apollonian is an inner perception, an intuition of the
world of ideas. The parallel with the dream clearly shows
that Nietzsche regarded this state as a merely perceptive
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 181
condition on the one hand and as a merely pictorial one
on the other.
These characteristics are individual peculiarities, which
we must not include in our concept of the introverted or
extraverted attitude. In a man whose prevailing attitude
is reflective this Apollonian state of perception of inner
images produces an elaboration of the material perceived
in accordance with the character of the individual thought
Hence proceed ideas. In a man of a predominantly feeling
attitude a similar process results : a searching feeling
into the images and an elaboration of a feeling-idea which
may essentially correspond with the idea produced by think-
ing. Ideas, therefore, are just as much feeling as thought :
for example, the idea of the fatherland, of freedom, of God,
of immortality, etc. In both elaborations the principle
is rational and logical. But there is also a quite different
standpoint, from which the logical-rational elaboration is
not valid. This other standpoint is the (Esthetic . In intro-
version it stays with the perception of ideas, it develops
intuition, the inner perception; in extraversion it stays
with sensation and develops the senses, instinct, affectedness.
Thinking, for such a standpoint, is in no case the principle
of inner perception of ideas, and feeling just as little ;
instead, thinking and feeling are mere derivatives of
inner perception or outer sensation.
Nietzsche’s ideas, therefore, lead us on to the principles
of a third and a fourth psychological type, which one
might term the aesthetic, as opposed to the rational types
(thinking and feeling). These are the intuitive and the
sensation types. Both these types have the mechanisms
of introversion and extraversion in common with the
rational types, but they do not — like the thinking type
on the one hand — differentiate the perception and con-
templation of the inner images into thought, nor — like
the feeling type on the other — differentiate the affective
1 82 THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN
experience of instinct and sensation into feeling. On
the contrary, the intuitive raises unconscious perception
to the level of a differentiated function, by which he also
becomes adapted to the world. He adapts himself by
means of unconscious indications, which he receives
through an especially fine and sharpened perception and
interpretation of faintly conscious stimuli. How such a
function appears is naturally hard to describe, on account
of its irrational, and, "so to speak, unconscious character.
In a sense one might compare it with the daemon of
Socrates : with this qualification, however, that the strongly
rationalistic attitude of Socrates repressed the intuitive
function to the fullest limit; it had then to become
effective in concrete hallucination, since it had no direct
psychological access to consciousness. But with the
intuitive type this latter is precisely the case.
The sensation-type is in all respects a converse of
the intuitive. He bases himself almost exclusively upon
the element of external sensation. His psychology is
orientated in respect to instinct and sensation. Hence
he is wholly dependent upon actual stimulation.
The fact that it is just the psychological functions
of intuition on the one hand, and of sensation and instinct
on the other, that Nietzsche brings into relief, must be
characteristic of his own personal psychology. He must
surely be reckoned as an intuitive type with an inclination
towards the side of introversion. As evidence of the
former we have his pre-eminently intuitive, artistic manner
of production, * of which this very work The Birth of
Tragedy is highly characteristic, while his master work
Thus Spake Zarathustra is even more so. His aphoristic
writings are expressive of his introverted intellectual side.
These, in spite of a strong admixture of feeling, exhibit
a pronounced critical intellectualism in the manner of the
French intellectuals of the eighteenth century. His lack
THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN 183
of rational moderation and conciseness argues for the
intuitive type in general Under these circumstances it
is not surprising that in his initial work he unwittingly
sets the facts of his own personal psychology in the fore-
ground. This is all quite in harmony with the intuitive
attitude, which characteristically perceives the outer through
the medium of the inner, sometimes even at the expense
of reality. By means of this attitude he also gained deep
insight into the Dionysian qualities of his unconscious,
the crude forms of which, so far as we know, reached the
surface of consciousness only at the outbreak of his ill-
ness, although they had already revealed their presence
in various erotic allusions. It is therefore extremely
regrettable, from the standpoint of psychology, that the
fragments — so significant in this respect — which were
found in Turin after the onset of his malady, should
have met with destruction at the hands of moral and
aesthetic scruples.
CHAPTER IV
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN THE DISCERNMENT OF HUMAN
CHARACTER
1. General Remarks upon Jordan's Types
In my chronological survey of previous contributions to
this interesting problem of psychological types, I now
come to a small and rather odd work (my acquaintance
with which I owe to my esteemed colleague Dr Constance
Long, of London) : Character as seen in Body and Parent -
age by Furneaux Jordan, F.R.C.S. (3rd edn., London 1896).
In his little book of one hundred and twenty-six pages,
Jordan's main description refers to two types or characters,
whose definition interests us in more than one respect.
Although — to anticipate slightly — the author is really
concerned with only one half of our types, the point of
view of the other half, namely the intuitive and sensation
types, is none the less included and confused with the
types he describes.
I will first let the author speak for himself, presenting
his introductory definition. On p. 5 he says :
“ There are two generic fundamental biases in character
. . . two conspicuous types of character (with a third, an inter-
mediate one) . . . one in which the tendency to action is extreme
and the tendency to reflection slight, and another in which
the proneness to reflection greatly predominates and the impulse
for action is feebler. Between the two extremes are innumer-
able gradations ; it is sufficient to point only to a third type . . .
in which the powers of reflection and action tend to meet in more
or less equal degree. . . In an intermediate class may also be
placed the characters which tend to eccentricity, or in which
other possibly abnormal tendencies predominate over the emo-
tional and non-emotional.”
W
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 185
It can be clearly seen from this definition that Jordan
contrasts reflection, or thinking, with activity. It is
thoroughly understandable that an observer of men, not
probing too deeply, would first be struck by the contrast
between the reflective and the active natures, and would
therefore be inclined to define the observed antithesis from
this angle. The simple reflection, however, that the active
nature does not necessarily proceed froni impulse, but can
also originate in thought, would make it seem necessary
to carry the definition somewhat deeper. Jordan himself
reaches this conclusion, for on p. 6 he introduces a further
element into his survey, which has for us a particular
value, namely the element of feeling. He states here that
the active type is less passionate, while the reflective
temperament is distinguished by its passionate feelings.
Hence Jordan calls his types “the less impassioned” and
“the more impassioned”. Thus the element which he
overlooked in his introductory definition he subsequently
raises to the constant factor. But what mainly dis-
tinguishes his conception from ours is the fact that he also
makes the “ less impassioned ” type “ active ” and the other
“inactive”.
This combination seems to me unfortunate, since
highly passionate and profound natures exist which are
also energetic and active, and, conversely, there are less
impassioned and superficial natures which are in no way
distinguished by activity, not even by the low form of
activity that consists in being busy. In my view, his
otherwise valuable conception would have gained much in
clarity if he had left the factors of activity and inactivity
altogether out of account, as belonging to a quite different
point-of-view, although in themselves important charactero-
logical determinants.
It will be seen from the arguments which follow that
with the “less impassioned and more active” type Jordan
G*
is describing the extravert, and that his “ more impassioned
and less active” type corresponds with the introvert.
Either can be active or inactive without thereby changing
its type ; for this reason the factor of activity should, in
my opinion, be ruled out as an index character. As a
determinant of secondary importance, however, it still
plays a rdle, since the whole nature of the extravert
appears more mobile, more full of life and activity than
that of the introvert But this quality depends upon the
phase which the individual temporarily occupies vis-4-vis
the outer world. An introvert in an extraverted phase
appears active, while an extravert in an introverted phase
appears passive. Activity itself, as a fundamental trait of
character, can sometimes be introverted ; it is then wholly
directed within, developing a lively activity of thought or
feeling behind an outer mask of profound repose; or at
times it can be extraverted, showing itself in vigorous and
lively action whilst behind the scenes there stands a firm
dispassionate thought or untroubled feeling.
Before we make a more narrow examination of Jordan’s
train of ideas, I must, for greater clarity, stress yet another
point which, if not borne in mind, might give rise to
confusion. I remarked at the beginning that in earlier
publications I had identified the introvert with the thinking
and the extravert with the feeling type. As I said before,
it became clear to me only later that introversion and
extraversion are to be distinguished from the function-
types as general basic attitudes. These two attitudes
may be recognized with the greatest ease while a sound
discrimination of the function types requires a very wide
experience. At times it is uncommonly difficult to dis-
cover which function holds the premier place. The fact
that the introvert naturally has a reflective and contemp-
lative air, as a result of his abstracting attitude, has a
mi«Wdin gr effect. This leads us to assume in him a
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 187
priority of thinking. The extravert, on the contrary,
naturally displays many immediate reactions, which easily
allow us to conclude a predominance of the feeling-
element But these suppositions are deceptive, since the
extravert may well be a thinking, and the introvert a
feeling, type. Jordan merely describes the introvert and
the extravert in general. But, where he goes into
individual qualities, his description becomes misleading,
because traits of different function-types are confused
together, which a more adequate examination of the
material would have kept apart. In general outlines,
however, the picture of the introverted and extraverted
attitude is unmistakable, so that the nature of the two
basic attitudes can be plainly discerned.
The characterization of the types from the standpoint
of affectivity appears to me as the really important aspect
of Jordan’s work. We have already seen that the
“reflective” and contemplative nature of the introvert
finds compensation in an unconscious, archaic life with
regard to instinct and sensation. We might even say
that that is why he is introverted, since he has to rise
above an archaic, impulsive, passionate nature to the
safer heights of abstraction, in order to dominate his
insubordinate and turbulent affects. This statement of
the case is in many instances not at all beside the mark.
Conversely, we might say of the extravert that his less
deeply rooted emotional life is more readily adapted to
differentiation and domestication than his unconscious,
archaic thought and feeling, and it is this deep phantasy
activity which may have such a dangerous influence upon
his personality. Hence he is always the one who seeks
life and experience as busily and abundantly as possible,
that he may never come to himself and confront his evil
thoughts and feelings. From observations such as these,
which are very easily verified, we may explain an other-
wise paradoxical passage in Jordan, where he says (p. 6),
that in the “ less impassioned ” (extraverted) temperament
the intellect predominates with an unusually large share
in the shaping of life, whereas the affects claim the
greater importance with the “reflective” or introverted
temperament
At first glance, this interpretation would seem to
contradict my assertion that the “less impassioned”
corresponds with my extraverted type. But a nearer
scrutiny proves that this is not the case, since the reflective
character, though certainly trying to deal with his unruly
affects, is in reality more influenced by passion than the
man who takes for the conscious guidance of his life those
desires which are orientated to objects. The latter,
namely the extravert, attempts to make this principle all
inclusive, but he has none the less to experience the fact
that it is his subjective thoughts and feelings which every-
where harass him on his way. He is influenced by his
inner psychic world to a far greater extent than he is
aware of. He cannot see it himself, but an observant
entourage always discerns the personal purposiveness of
his striving. Hence his golden rule should always be to
ask himself : “ What is my actual wish and secret purpose ? ”
The other, the introvert, with his conscious, thought-
out aims, always tends to overlook what his circle per-
ceives only too clearly, namely that his aims are really
in the service of powerful impulses, to whose influence,
though lacking both purpose and object, they are very
largely subject. The observer and critic of the extravert
is liable to take the parade of feeling and thought as a
thin covering, that only partially conceals a cold and
calculated personal aim. Whereas the man who tries to
understand the introvert might readily conclude that
vehement passion is only with difficulty held in check by
apparent sophistries.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 189
Either judgment is both true and false. The conclusion
is false when the conscious standpoint, i.e. consciousness in
general, is strong enough to offer resistance to the uncon-
scious ; but it is true when a weaker conscious standpoint
encounters a strong unconscious, to which it eventually
has to give way. In this latter case the motive that was
kept in the background now breaks forth ; the egotistical
aim in the one case, and the unsubdued passion, the
elemental affect, that throws aside every consideration in
the other.
These observations allow us to see how Jordan observes :
he is evidently preoccupied with the affectivity of the
observed type, hence his nomenclature: “less emotional”
and “ more impassioned If, therefore, from the emotional
aspect he conceives the introvert as the passionate, and
from the same standpoint he sees the extravert as the
less impassioned and even as the intellectual, type, he
thereby reveals a peculiar kind of discernment which one
must describe as intuitive. This is why I previously drew
attention to the fact that Jordan confuses the rational
with the perceptional point of view. When he character-
izes the introvert as the passionate and the extravert as
the intellectual, he is clearly seeing the two types from
the side of the unconscious , i.e. he perceives them through the
medium of his unconscious. He observes and recognizes
intuitively', this must always be more or less the c as e
with the practical observer of men. However true and
profound such an apprehension may sometimes be, it
is subject to a most essential limitation : it overlooks the
living reality of the observed man, since it always judges
him from his unconscious reflexion instead of his actual
presence. This error of judgment is inseparable from
intuition, and reason has always been at loggerheads
with it on this account, only grudgingly acknowledging
its right to existence, in spite of the fact that it must often
190 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
be convinced of the objective accuracy of the intuitive
finding. On the whole ; then, Jordan’s formulations accord
with reality, though not with reality as it is understood
by the rational types, but with the reality which is for
them unconscious. Naturally, this is a circumstance than
which nothing is more calculated to confuse all judgment
upon the observed persons, and to enhance the difficulty
of interpretation of the facts observed. In these questions,
therefore, one ought never to quarrel over nomenclature,
but should hold exclusively to the actual facts of observ-
able, contrasting differences. Although my own manner
of expression is altogether different from that of Jordan,
we are nevertheless at one, with certain divergences, upon
the classification of the observed phenomena.
Before going on to comment upon the way Jordan
reduces his observed material into types, I should like
briefly to return to his postulated third or “ intermediate ”
type. Jordan, as we saw, ranged under this heading the
wholly balanced on one side, and the unbalanced on the
other. It will not be superfluous at this point to call to
mind the classification of the Valentinian school 1 , in
which the Hylic man is subordinated to the psychic and
pneumatic. The hylic man, according to his definition,
corresponds with the sensation type, i.e. with the man
whose prevailing determinants are supplied in and through
the senses. The sensation type has neither a differentiated
thinking nor a differentiated feeling, but his sensuousness
is well developed. This, as we know, is also the case with
the primitive. But the instinctive sensuality of the
primitive has a counterweight in the spontaneity of the
psychic processes. His mental product, his thoughts,
practically confront him. He does not make or devise
i The name given to the adherents of Valentinus, an Egyptian
theologian who flourished circa a.d. 150 and founded a Gnostic sect.
The Hylid suffered themselves to be so captivated by the inferior
world as to live only a hylic or material life. {New English Dictionary )
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 191
them — he is not capable of that: they make themselves,
they happen to him, even confronting him like hallucina-
tions. Such a mentality must be termed intuitive, since
intuition is the instinctive perception of an emerging
psychic content Although the principal psychological
function of the primitive is as a rule sensation, the less
prominent compensating function is intuition. Upon the
higher levels of civilization, where one man has thinking
more or less differentiated and another feeling, there are
also quite a number of individuals who have developed
intuition to a high level and employ it as the essentially
determining function. From these we get the intuitive
type. It is my belief, therefore, that Jordan’s middle
group may be resolved into the sensation and intuitive types.
2. Special Description and Criticism of the Jordan
Types
With regard to the general appearance of the two
types Jordan emphasizes the fact (p. 17) that the less
emotional yields far more prominent and striking person-
alities than the emotional type. This notion springs from
the fact that Jordan identifies the active type of man with
the less emotional, which in my opinion is inadmissible.
Leaving this mistake on one side, it is certainly true that
the behaviour of the “ less emotional ”, or let us say the
extravert, makes him more conspicuous than the emotional
or introvert.
(a) The Introverted Woman (The more-impassioned
woman)
The first character that Jordan discusses is that of the
introverted woman. Let me summarize the chief points of
his description (pp. 17 ff.) :
“ She has quiet manners, and a character not easy to read :
tfte is occasionally critical, even sarcastic . . . but though
192 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
bad temper is sometimes noticeable, she is neither fitful nox
restless, nor captious, nor censorious, nor is she a “ nagging ”
woman. She diffuses an atmosphere of repose, and uncon-
sciously she comforts and heals, but under the surface emotions
and passions lie dormant. Her emotional nature matures slowly
As she grows older the charm of her character increases. She is
“ sympathetic’ 1 , i.e. she brings insight and experience to bear
on the problems of others. The very worst characters are found
among the more impassioned women. They are the cruellest
stepmothers. They make the most affectionate wives and
mothers, but their passions and emotions are so strong that these
frequently hold reason in subjection or carry it away with them.
They love too much, but they also hate too much. Jealousy can
make wild beasts of them. Stepchildren, if hated by them,
may even be done to death.
“ If evil is not in the ascendant, morality itself is associated
with deep feeling, and may take a profoundly reasoned and
independent course which will not always fit itself to conven-
tional standards. It will not be an imitation or a submission:
not a bid for a reward here or hereafter. It is only in intimate
relations that the excellences and drawbacks of the impassioned
woman are seen. Here she unfolds herself ; here are her joys and
sorrows . . . here her faults and weaknesses are seen, perhaps
slowness to forgive, implacability, sullenness, anger, jealousy,
or even . . . uncontrolled passions. . . She is charmed with
the moment . . . and less apt to think of the comfort and welfare
of the absent .... she is disposed to forget others and forget
time. If she is affected, her affectation is less an imitation tha n
a pronounced change of manners and speech with changing
shades of thought and especially of feeling. ... In social life
she tends to be the same in all circles. ... In both domestic
and social life she is as a rule not difficult to please, she spon-
taneously appreciates, congratulates, and praises. She can
soothe the mentally bruised and encourage the unsuccessful.
In her there is compassion for all weak things, two-footed or four.
. . . She rises to the high and stoops to the low, she is the sister
and playmate of all nature. Her judgment is mild and lenient.
When she reads she tries to grasp the inmost thought and deepest
feeling of the book ; she reads and re-reads the book, marks it
freely, and turns down its comers.”
From this description it is not difficult to recognize
the introverted character. But the description is, in a
certain sense, one-sided, because the chief stress is laid
upon the side of feeling, without emphasizing the one
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 193
characteristic to which I give special value, viz. the conscious
inner life. He mentions, it is true, that the introverted
woman is “contemplative,” but he does not pursue the
matter further. His description, however, seems to me a
confirmation of my comments upon the manner of his
observation ; in the main it is the outward demeanour
constellated by feeling, and the manifestations of passions
which strike him ; he does not probe into the nature of
the conscious life of this type. Hence he never mentions
that the inner life plays an altogether decisive r 61 e in the
introvert’s conscious psychology. Why, for example, does
the introverted woman read so attentively ? Because above
everything she loves to understand and comprehend ideas.
Why is she restful and soothing? Because she usually
keeps her feelings to herself, living them inwardly, instead
of unloading them upon others. Her unconventional
morality is based upon deep reflection and convincing
inner feelings. The charm of her calm and intelligent
character depends not merely upon a peaceful attitude,
but derives from the fact that one can talk with her
reasonably and coherently, and because she is able to
estimate the value of her companion’s argument She
does not interrupt him with impulsive demonstrations,
but accompanies his meaning with her thoughts and feel-
ings, which none the less remain steadfast, never yielding
to opposing arguments.
This compact and well-developed ordering of conscious
psychic contents is a stout defence against a chaotic and
passionate emotional life, of which the introvert is very
often aware, at least in its personal aspect: she fears it
because it is present to her. She meditates about herself:
she is therefore outwardly equable and can recognize and
appreciate another, without loading him with either blame
or approbation. But because her emotional life would
devastate these good qualities, she as far as possible rejects
194 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
her instincts and affects, but without thereby mastering
them. In contrast, therefore, to her logical and consolidated
consciousness, her affect is proportionally elemental, con-
fused and ungovernable It lacks the true human note ;
it is disproportionate and irrational ; it is a phenomenon oj
Nature , which breaks through the human order. It lacks
any tangible arrifere pens6e or purpose : at times, therefore,
it is quite destructive — a wild torrent, that neither con-
templates destruction nor avoids it, profoundly indifferent
and necessary, obedient only to its own laws, a process
that accomplishes itself. Her good qualities depend upon
her thinking, which by a tolerant or benevolent compre-
hension has succeeded in influencing or restraining one
element of her instinctive life, though lacking the power
to embrace and transform the whole. Her affectivity is
far less clearly conscious to the introverted woman in its
whole range than are her rational thoughts and feelings.
She is incapable of comprehending her whole affectivity,
although her way of looking at life is well adapted. Her
affectivity is much less mobile than her intellectual con-
tents : it is, as it were, tough and curiously inert, therefore
hard to change ; it is perseverant, hence also her self-will
and her occasional unreasonable inflexibility in things
that touch her emotions.
These considerations may explain why a judgment
of the introverted woman, taken exclusively from the
angle of affectivity, is incomplete and unfair in whatever
sense it is taken. If Jordan finds the vilest feminine
characters among the introverts, this, in my opinion, is
due to the fact that he lays too great a stress upon
affectivity, as if passion alone were the mother of all
evil. We can torture children to death in other ways
than the merely physical. And, from the other point-
of-view, that wondrous wealth of love of the introverted
woman is not always by any means her own possession i
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 193
she is more often possessed by it and cannot choose but
love, until one day a favourable opportunity occurs, when
suddenly, to the amazement of her partner, she displays
an inexplicable coldness. The emotional life of the
introvert is generally his weak side ; it is not absolutely
trustworthy. He deceives himself about it; others also
are cfeceived and disappointed in him, when they rely
too exclusively upon his affectivity. His mind is more
reliable, because more adapted. His affect is too close
to sheer untamed nature.
(#) The Extroverted Woman (The less-impassioned
woman)
Let us now turn to Jordan’s delineation of the “ less
impassioned woman ”. Here too I must reject everything
which the author has confused by the introduction of
activity, since this admixture is only calculated to render
the typical character less recognizable. Thus, when we
speak of a certain quickness of the extravert, this does
not mean the element of energy and activity, but merely
the mobility of active processes.
Of the extraverted woman Jordan says : 1
“ She is marked by a certain quickness and opportuneness
rather than by persistence or consistency. . . Her life is almost
wholly occupied with little things. She goes even further than
Lord Beaconsfield in the belief that unimportant things are
not very unimportant, and important things not very important.
She likes to dwell on the way her grandmother did things, and
how her grandchildren will do them, and on the universal de-
generacy of human beings and affairs. Her daily wonder is
how things would go on if she were not there to look after them.
She is frequently invaluable in social movements. She expends
her energies in household cleanliness, which is the end and aim
of existence to not a few women. Frequently she is ‘ idea-less,
emotionless, restless and spotless'. Her emotional development
is usually precocious, and at eighteen she is little less wise than at
twenty-eight or forty-eight. Her mental outlook usually lacks
1
196 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
range and depth, but it is clear from the first. When intelligent,
she is capable of taking a leading position. In society she is
kindly, generous and hospitable. She judges her neighbours
and friends, forgetful that she is herself being judged, but she is
active in helping them in misfortune. Deep passion is absent
in her, love is simply preference, hatred merely dislike, and
jealousy only injured pride. Her enthusiasm is not sustained,
and she is more alive to the beauty of poetry than she is to its
passion and pathos. . . . Her beliefs and disbeliefs are complete
rather than strong. She has no convictions, but she has no
misgivings. She does not believe, she adopts, she does not
disbelieve, she ignores. She never enquires and never doubts.
... In large affairs she defers to authority ; in small affairs
she jumps to conclusions. In the detail of her own little world,
whatever is, is wrong : in the larger world outside . . . whatever
is, is right. . . . She instinctively rebels against carrying the
conclusions of reason into practice.
“ At home she shows quite a different character from the one
seen in society. With her, marriage is much influenced by
ambition, love of change or obedience to well-recognized custom,
and a desire to be ‘ settled in life', or from a sincere wish to
enter a greater sphere of usefulness. If her husband belongs
to the impassioned type, he will love children more than she
does.
“ In the domestic circle her least pleasing characteristics
are evident. Here she indulges in disconnected, disapproving
comment, and none can foresee when there will be a gleam of
sunshine through the cloud. The unemotional woman has little
or no self-analysis. If she is plainly accused of habitual dis-
approval she is surprised and offended, and intimates . . . that
she only desires the general good * but some people do not know
what is good for them \ She has one way of doing good to her
family, and quite another way where society is concerned. The
household must always be . . . ready for social inspection.
Society must be encouraged and propitiated. ... Its upper
section must be impressed and its lower section kept in order. . . .
Home is her winter, society her summer. If the door but opens
and a visitor is announced, the transformation is instant.
“ The less emotional woman is by no means given to asceticism ;
respectability . . . does not demand it of her. She is fond of
movement, recreation, change. . . . Her busy day may open
with a religious service, and close with a comic opera. . . .
She delights ... to entertain her friends and to be entertained
by them. In society she finds not only her work and her happi-
ness, but her rewards and her consolations. . . She believes
in society, and society believes in her. Her feelings are little
influenced by prejudice, and as a rule she is ‘ reasonable*. She
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 197
is very imitative and usually selects good models, but is only
dimly conscious of her imitations. The books she reads must
deal with life and action.”
This familiar type of woman, which Jordan terms the
u less impassioned ”, is extraverted beyond a doubt. The
whole demeanour sets forth that character which from its
very nature must be called extraverted. The continual
criticizing, that is never founded upon real reflection, is
an extraversion of a fleeting impression, which has
nothing to do with true thinking. I remember a witty
aphorism I once read somewhere or other : “ Thinking is so
difficult — therefore most of us prefer to pass judgments
Reflection demands time above everything : therefore the
man who reflects has no opportunity for continual criticism.
Incoherent and inconsequent criticism, with its dependence
upon tradition and authority, reveals the absence of any
independent reflection ; similarly the lack of self-criticism
and the dearth of independent ideas betrays a defect of
the function of judgment. The absence of inner mental
life in this type is expressed much more distinctly than
is its presence in the introverted type depicted above.
From this sketch one might readily conclude that there
is here just as great or even a greater defect of affectivity,
for it is obviously superficial, shallow, almost spurious;
because the aim always involved in it or discernible behind
it, makes the emotional effort practically worthless. I
am, however, inclined to assume that the author is here
undervaluing just as much as he overvalued in the former
case. Notwithstanding an occasional recognition of good
qualities, the type, on the whole, comes out of it very
indifferently. I must assume in this case a certain bias
on the part of the author. It is usually enough to have
tasted a bitter experience, either with one or more repre-
sentatives of a certain type, for one’s taste to be spoiled
1 " Denken ist so schwer — datum nrteilen die Moisten.”
198 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
for every similar case. One must not forget that, just as
the good sense of the introverted woman depends upon a
scrupulous accommodation of her mental contents to the
general thought, the affectivity of the extraverted woman
possesses a certain mobility and lack of depth, on account
of her adaptation to the general life of human society.
In this case, it is a question of a socially differentiated
affectivity of incontestable general validity, which compares
more than favourably with the heavy, sticky, passionate
affect of the introvert The differentiated affectivity has
cut away the chaotic affect, and has become a disposable
function of adaptation, though at the expense of the
inner mental life, which is remarkable by its absence.
It none the less exists in the unconscious, and moreover
in a form which corresponds with the passion of the
introvert, i.e. in an undeveloped state. The character of
this state is infantile and archaic. The undeveloped
mind, working from the unconscious, provides the affective
struggle with contents and hidden motives, which can not
fail to make a bad impression upon the critical observer,
although unperceived by the uncritical eye. The dis-
agreeable impression that the constant perception of
thinly veiled egoistic motives has upon the beholder
makes one only too prone to forget the actual reality
and adapted usefulness of the efforts thus displayed. All
that is easy, unforced, moderate, unconcerned and super-
ficial in life would disappear, if there were no differentiated
affects. One would either be stifled in continuously
manifested pathos, or be engulfed in the yawning void
of repressed passion. If the social function of the
introvert mainly perceives individuals, the extravert
certainly promotes the life of the community, which also
has a claim to existence. That is why he needs extra-
version because first and foremost it is the bridge to one’s
neighbour.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 199
As we all know, the expression of emotion works
suggestively, while the mind can only unfold its effective-
ness indirectly, by arduous translation. The affects
required by the social function must not be at all deep,
or they beget passion in others. And passion disturbs the
life and prosperity of society. Similarly the adapted,
differentiated mind of the introvert has extensity rather
than depth; hence it is not disturbing and provocative
but reasonable and sedative. But, just as the introvert
is troublesome through the violence of his passion, the
extravert is irritating through an incoherent and abrupt
application of his half unconscious thoughts and feelings in
the form of tactless and unsparing judgments upon his
fellow-men. If we were to make a collection of such
judgments and were to try synthetically to construct a
psychology out of them, we should arrive at an utterly
brutal conception, which in cheerless savagery, crudity,
and stupidity, would be a fitting rival to the murderous
affect-nature of the introvert. Hence I cannot subscribe
to Jordan's view that the worst characters are to be found
among the passionate introverted, natures. Among the
extraverts there is just as much and just as basic wicked-
ness. Whereas introverted passionateness reveals itself in
coarse actions, the vulgarity of the extravert’s unconscious
thinking and feeling commits infamous deeds upon the
soul of the victim. I know not which is worse. The
drawback in the former case is that the deed is visible,
while the latter's vulgarity of mind is concealed behind the
veil of- an acceptable demeanour. I would like to lay
stress upon the social thoughtfulness of this type, his
active concern for the general welfare, as well as a most
definite tendency to provide pleasure for others. The
introvert as a rule has these qualities only in phantasy.
Differentiated affects have the further advantage of
charm and beautiful form. They diffuse an aesthetic,
200 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
beneficent atmosphere. There are a surprising number of
extraverts who practise an art (chiefly music) not so much
because they are specially qualified in that direction as
from a desire to be generally serviceable in social life.
Extraverted fault-finding, moreover, is not always un-
pleasant or wholly worthless in character. It very often
confines itself to an adapted, educational tendency, which
does a great deal of good. Similarly, his dependence of
judgment is not necessarily evil under all circumstances,
for it often conduces to the suppression of extravagant and
pernicious out-growths, which in no way further the life
and welfare of society. It would be altogether unjustifiable
to try to maintain that one type is in any respect more
valuable than the other. The types are mutually comple-
mentary, and from their distinctiveness there proceeds just
that measure of tension which both the individual and
society need for the maintenance of life.
(c) The Extraverted Man
Of the extraverted man Jordan says (pp. 26 ff.) :
“ He is fitful and uncertain in temper and behaviour, given
... to petulance, fuss, discontent and censoriousness. He makes
depreciatory judgments on all and sundry, but is ever well satisfied
with himself. His judgment is often at fault and his projects
often fail, but he never ceases to place unbounded confidence
in both. Sidney Smith, speaking of a conspicuous statesman
of his time, said he was ready at any moment to command the
Channel Fleet or amputate a limb. . . . He has an incisive
formula for everything that is put before him : . . . either
the thing is not true — or everybody knows it already. ... In
his sky there is not room for two suns. ... If other suns insist
on shining, he has a curious sense of martyrdom. . . .
“ He matures early : he is fond of administration, . . . and
is often an admirable public servant. ... At the committee of
his charity he is as much interested in the selection of its washer-
woman as in the selection of its chairman. In company he is
usually alert, to the point, witty, and apt at retort. He resolutely,
confidently, and constantly shows himself. Experience helps
him and he insists on getting experience. He would rather be
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER 201
the known chairman of a committee of three than the unknown
benefactor of a nation. When he is less gifted he is probably
no less self-important. Is he busy ? He believes himself to
be energetic. Is he loquacious ? He believes himself to be
eloquent.
“ He rarely puts forth new ideas, or opens new paths . . .
but he is quick to follow, to seize, to apply, to carry out. . . .
His natural tendency is to ancient, or at least accepted forms
of belief and policy. Special circumstances may sometimes
lead him to contemplate with admiration the audacity of his
own heresy. . . - Not rarely the less emotional intellect is so
lofty and commanding, that no disturbing influence can hinder
the formation of broad and just views in all the provinces of
life. His life is usually characterized by morality, truthfulness,
and high principle; but sometimes his desire for immediate
effect leads him into difficulties.
“ If, in public assembly, adverse fates have given him nothing
to do, nothing to propose, or second, or support, or amend, or
oppose, he will rise and ask for some window to be closed to
keep out a draught, or, which is more likely, that one be opened
to let in more air; for physiologically, he commonly needs
much air as well as much notice. ... He is especially prone
to do what he is not asked to do. . . He constantly believes
that the public sees him as he wishes it to see him ... a sleep-
less seeker of the public good. . . . He puts others in his debt,
and he cannot go unrewarded. He may, by well-chosen language,
move his audience although he is not moved himself. He is
probably quick to understand his time or at least his party . . .
he warns it of impending evil, organizes its forces, deals smartly
with its opponents. He is full of projects and bustling activity.
Society must be pleased if possible, if it will not be pleased it
must be astonished ; if it will neither be pleased nor astonished
it must be pestered and shocked. He is a saviour by profession
and as an acknowledged saviour is not ill pleased with himself.
We can of ourselves do nothing right — but we can believe in
him, dream of him, thank God for him, and ask him to address us.
“ He is unhappy in repose, and rests nowhere long. After
a busy day he must have a pungent evening. He is found in
the theatre, or concert, or church, or the bazaar, at the dinner,
or conversazione or club, or all these, turn and turn about. . . .
If he misses a meeting, a telegram announces a more ostentatious
call.”
From this description the type is easily recognized.
But, even more perhaps than in the description of
the extraverted woman, there emerges notwithstanding
202 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
individual evidences of appreciation, an element of cari-
caturing depreciation. This is partly due to the fact
that this method of description cannot be just to the
extraverted nature in general, because with the intellectual
medium it is well-nigh impossible to set the specific value
of the extravert in a fair light : while with the introvert
this is much more possible, since his conscious motivation
and goodsense permit of expression through the intellectual
medium as readily as do the facts of his passion and its
inevitable consequences. With the extravert, on the other
hand, the chief value lies in his relation to the object.
To me it seems that only life itself can concede the
extravert that justice which intellectual criticism fails to
give him. Life alone reveals and appreciates his values.
We can, of course, state the fact that the extravert is
socially useful, that he deserves great merit for the progress
of human society, and so on. But an analysis of his means
and motivations will always give a negative result, since
the chief value of the extravert lies not in himself but in
the reciprocal relation to the object The relation to
the object belongs to those imponderabilia, which the
intellectual formulation can never seize.
Intellectual criticism cannot abstain from proceeding
analytically : it must constantly seek evidence concerning
motivation and aims, in order to bring the observed type
to complete definition. But from this process a picture
emerges which is no better than a caricature for the
psychology of the extravert, and the man who is fain to
believe he has found the extravert’s real attitude upon
the basis of such a description will be astonished to find
the actual personality turning his description to ridicule.
Such a one-sided conception entirely prevents any adapta-
tion to the extravert. In order to do him justice, thinking
about him must be altogether excluded; similarly the
extravert can adjust himself correctly to the introvert only
203
TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
when he is prepared to accept his mental contents in
themselves quite apart from their possible practical applica-
tion. Intellectual analysis cannot help charging the ex-
travert with every possible design, subtle aim, mental
reservation, and so forth, which have no actual existence,
but at the most are only shadowy effects leaking in from
the unconscious background.
It is certainly true that the extrovert, if he has nothing
else to say, may find it necessary for a window to be
opened or shut. But who has remarked it? Who is
essentially struck by it? Only the man who is trying to
give an account of the possible grounds and intentions
of such an action, one therefore who reflects, dissects, and
reconstructs, while for everyone else this little stir is
altogether dissolved in the general bustle of life, with-
out offering an invitation to any ulterior deduction.
But it is just in this way that the psychology of the
extrovert reveals itself: it belongs to the occurrences of
daily human life, and it signifies nothing more, either
above or below. But the man who reflects, sees further
and — as far as the actual life is concerned — sees crooked,
although his vision is sound enough as regards the un-
conscious background. He does not see the positive man,
but only his shadow. And the shadow admits the justice
of the criticism, to the prejudice of the conscious, positive
human being. For the sake of understanding, it is, I think,
a good thing to detach the man from his shadow, the
unconscious ; otherwise the discussion is threatened with
an unparalleled confusion of ideas. One sees much in
another man which does not belong __ to his conscious
psychology, but which gleams out from his unconscious,
and one is rather tempted to regard the observed quality
as belonging to the conscious ego. Life and fate may
do this, but the psychologist, to whom the knowledge of
the structure of the psyche and the dawning possibility
204 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
of a better understanding of man is of the deepest concern,
must not. A clean discrimination of the conscious man
from his unconscious is imperative, since only by the
assimilation of conscious standpoints will clarity and
understanding be gained, and never through a process
of reduction to the unconscious backgrounds, side-lights,
and quarter-tones.
(d) The Introverted Man
Of the character of the introverted man (the more
impassioned and reflective man), Jordan says (p. 35):
“ His pleasures do not change from hour to hour, his love
of pleasure is of a more genuine nature, and he does not seek
it from mere restlessness. If he takes part in public work he
is probably invited to do so from some special fitness ; or it may
be that he has at heart some movement . . . which he wishes
to promote. When his work is done he willingly retires. He is
able to see what others can do better than he ; and he would
rather that his cause should prosper in other hands than fail
in his own. He has a hearty word of praise for his fellow-workers.
Probably he errs in estimating too generously the merits of those
around him. . . . He is never, and indeed cannot be, an habitual
scold. Such men develop slowly, are liable to hesitate, never
become the leaders of religious movements, are never so supremely
confident as to what is error that they bum their neighbours
for it; never so confident that they possess infallible truth
that, although not wanting in courage, they are prepared to be
burnt in its behalf. If they are especially endowed, they will be
thrust into the front rank by their environment, while men of the
other type place themselves there.”
To me it seems significant that the author in his
chapter on the introverted man, with whom we are now
concerned, actually says no more than I have substantially
given above. A description of the passion on which
account he is termed the “impassioned” type is for the
most part omitted. One must, of course, be cautious in
making diagnostic conjectures — but this case seems to
invite the supposition that the section on the introverted
man has received such niggardly treatment from subjective
type-problem IN HUMAN CHARACTER 205
causes. One might have expected, after the searching
and unfair delineation of the extraverted type, a similar
thoroughness of description for the introvert Why is it
not forthcoming ?
Let us suppose that Jordan himself is upon the side
of the introverts. It would then be intelligible that a
description like the one he gives to his opposite type with
such pitiless severity, would scarcely be acceptable. I
would not say because of a lack of objectivity, but rather
for lack of discernment of his own shadow. How he
appears to his counter-type, the introvert cannot possibly
know or imagine, unless he allows the extravert a privileged
recital of it, at the risk of being obliged to challenge him
to a duel. Just as little as the extravert is disposed to
accept the above characteristics without more ado, as a
benevolent and striking picture of his character, is the
introvert willing to receive his characteristics from an
extraverted observer and critic. For it would be just
as depreciatory. As the introvert, who tries to get hold
of the nature of the extravert, invariably goes wide of the
mark, so the extravert who tries to understand the other’s
inner mental life from the standpoint of externality is
equally at sea. The introvert makes the mistake of always
wanting to relate action to the subjective psychology of the
extravert, while the extravert can only conceive the inner
mental life as a product of external circumstances. For
the extravert an abstract train of thought must be a
phantasy, a sort of chimera, when an objective relation
is not in evidence. And as a matter of fact introverted
brain-weavings are often nothing more. At all events a
lot could be said of the introverted man, and one could
draw a shadow portrait of him neither less complete nor
unfavourable than that which Jordan in his earlier section
drew of the extravert
Jordan’s observation that the pleasure of the introvert
206 TYPE-PROBLEM IN HUMAN CHARACTER
is of a “more genuine nature” seems to me important
This appears to be a peculiarity of the introverted feeling
in general : it is genuine ; it is because it just is ; it is
rooted in the man’s deeper nature; it wells up out of
itself as it were, having itself as its own aim ; it will serve
no other ends, lending itself to none, and is content to
accomplish itself. This coincides with the spontaneity of
the archaic and natural phenomenon, which has never yet
bowed the head to the ends and aims of civilization.
Whether rightly or wrongly, or at least without considera-
tion of right or wrong, of suitability or unsuitability, the
affective state manifests itself, forcing itself upon the subject
even against his will and expectation. It contains nothing
from which one might conclude a thought-out motivation.
I. do not wish to enlarge upon the further sections
of Jordan’s book. He cites historical personalities as
examples, whereby numerous distorted points of view
appear which derive from the fallacy already referred to:
ie. the author introduces the criterion of active and passive,
and mixes it up with other criteria. From this medley
the conclusion is frequently drawn that an active personality
must also be counted as a passion-less type, and, vice versa,
& passionate nature must likewise always be passive. My
standpoint seeks to avoid this error by altogether excluding
the factor of activity as a point-of-view.
To Jordan, however, the credit belongs of being the
first, so far as I know, to give a relatively appropriate
character-sketch of the emotional types.
CHAPTER V
THE PROBLEM OF TYPES IN POETRY
CARL SPITTELER’S PROMETHEUS AND EPIMETHEUS
1. Introductory Remarks on Spitteler’s Characteriza-
tion of Types
If, among the themes offered to the poet by the intricacies
of emotional life, the problem of types did not play a
significant rdle, it would practically prove that such a
problem did not exist. But we have already seen how
in Schiller this problem stirred the poet in him as deeply
as the thinker. In this chapter we shall turn our attention
to a poetic work which is almost exclusively based upon
the motif of the type-problem. I refer to Carl Spitteler’s
Prometheus and Epimetheus y which first appeared in 1881.
I have no wish to explain at the outset that Prometheus,
the forethinker, stands for the introvert, while Epimetheus,
the man of action and after-thinker, signifies the extravert
In the conflict of these two figures the principal issue is
the battle of the introverted with the extraverted line of
development in one and the same individual, though the
poetic presentation has embodied the conflict in two
independent figures with their typical destinies.
It is self-evident that Prometheus exhibits introverted
character traits, He presents the picture of a man faith-
fully introverted to his inner world, true to his soul. His
reply to the angel is a telling expression of his nature 1 :
“Yet it is not mine to judge my soul’s appearance, for
behold, my mistress she is, my god in joy and sorrow,
i Prometheus und Epimetheus . Diedrich's Edition, 1920, p. 9.
907
208
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
and whatsoever I am, I have from her alone. And so,
with her, will I share my glory, and if need be boldly will
I renounce it”
In this act Prometheus surrenders himself uncondition-
ally to his own soul, ul to the function of relation to
the inner world. Hence the soul has also a mysterious
metaphysical character, precisely on account of its relation
to the unconscious. Prometheus concedes it absolute
significance, as mistress and guide, in the same uncondi-
tional manner in which Epimetheus yields himself to the
world. He sacrifices his individual ego to the soul, to the
relation with the unconscious, as the mother-womb of
eternal images and meanings ; he thereby surrenders the
Self, since he loses the counterweight of the persona 1 , i.e.
the relation to the external object With this surrende*
to his soul Prometheus drops away from every connection
with the surrounding world, thus escaping the indispensable
correction gained through external reality. But this loss
is irreconcilable with the nature of this world. Therefore
an angel appears to Prometheus, clearly a representative
of world-government : expressed psychologically, he is the
projected image of a tendency directed towards reality-
adaptation. The angel accordingly says to Prometheus :
“ It shall come to pass, if thou dost not prevail and free
thyself from thy soul’s unrighteous way, that the great reward
of fnany years and thy heart’s content and all the fruits of thy
subtle mind shall be lost unto thee.”
And in another place :
“ Rejected shalt thou be on the day of glory for the sake of
thy soul, who knoweth no God and heedeth no law, for to her
arrogance nothing is holy, neither in heaven nor upon earth.”
Because Prometheus has a one-sided orientation to his
soul ; every impulse towards adaptation to the outer world
i CL Jung : La structure de Vinconscient (Arch, de Psych., vol, xvi),
and Analytical Psychology, ch. XV.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
209
tends to be repressed and to sink into the unconscious.
Consequently, if perceived at all, they appear as separate
from the individuality, hence as projections. In this
connection it would seem that there is a certain contra-
diction in the fact that the soul, whose cause Prometheus
has espoused and which he as it were , accepted in full
consciousness, appears as a projection. Since the soul,
like the persona, is a function of relationship, it must
consist in a certain sense of two parts, one part belonging
to the individuality and the other adhering to the object
of relationship, in this case the unconscious. One is
indeed generally inclined — unless one is a frank adherent
of the Hartmann philosophy — to grant the unconscious
only the relative existence of a psychological factor. On
the grounds of the theory of cognition, we are as yet quite
unable to make any valid statement with regard to an
objective reality of the phenomenal psychological complex
which we term the unconscious, just as we are equally
powerless to determine anything valid about the nature
of real things which lie beyond our psychological capacity.
On the ground of experience, I must, however, point out
that in relation to our conscious activity the contents of
the unconscious make the same claim to reality by virtue
of their obstinacy and persistence, as do the real things of
the outer world, even when this challenge appears very
improbable to a mentality with a preferential bias towards
external reality. It must not be forgotten that there have
always been many for whom the contents of the un-
conscious possessed a greater reality than the things of
the outer world. The history of human thought bears
witness to both realities. A more searching investigation
of the human psyche shows unquestionably that there is,
on the whole, an equally strong influence from both sides
upon conscious activity ; so that, psychologically, we have
a right on purely empirical grounds to treat the contents
210
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
of the unconscious as just as real as the things of the outer
world, albeit these two realities may be mutually contra-
dictory and appear entirely different in their natures.
But to superordinate one reality over the other would be
an altogether unjustifiable presumption. Theosophy and
spiritualism are no better than materialism in their
outrageous encroachments upon reality. We have, in fact,
to resign ourselves to the sphere of our psychological
possibilities.
The peculiar reality of unconscious contents, therefore,
gives us the same right to describe these as objects as the
things of the outer world. Whereas the persona, con-
sidered as a relation, is always conditioned by the outer
object, and hence is as firmly anchored in the outer object
as it is in the subject ; the soul, as the relation to the inner
object, is similarly represented by the inner object; in a
sense, therefore, it is always distinct from the subject, and
is actually perceptible as something distinct. Hence it
appears to Prometheus as something quite separate from
his individual ego. In the same way as a man who yields
himself entirely to the outer world still has the world as
an object distinct from himself, so the unconscious world
of images remains as an object distinct from the subject,
even when a man is wholly surrendered to it.
Just as the unconscious world of mythological images
speaks indirectly, through the experience of external
things, to the man who abandons himself to the outer
world, so the real world and its claims find their way in-
directly to the man who has surrendered himself to the soul ;
for no man can escape both realities. If a man is fixed
upon the outer reality, he must live his myth ; if he is turned
towards the inner reality, then must he dream his outer,
his so-called real life. Thus the soul says to Prometheus :
44 A God of crime am I who leadeth thee astray upon untrodden
paths. But thou would* st not hearken unto me, and now hath it
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 2ii
come to pass according to my words ; for my sake have they
robbed thee of the glory of thy name and stolen from thee thy
life’s content.” >■
Prometheus refuses the kingdom the angel offers him ;
which means that he refuses adaptation to things as they
are because his soul is demanded from him in exchange.
While the subject, i.e. Prometheus, is essentially human,
the soul is of quite a different character. It is daemonic,
because the inner object, namely the supra-personal
collective unconscious to which it is attached as the
function of relation, gleams through it The unconscious,
regarded as the historical background of the psyche,
contains in a concentrated form the entire succession of
engrams (imprints), which from time immemorial have
determined the psychic structure as it now exists. These
engrams may be regarded as function-traces which typify,
on the average, the most frequently and intensely used
functions of the human soul. These function-engrams
present themselves in the form of mythological themes
and images, appearing often in identical form and
always with striking similarity among all races ; they can
be easily verified in the unconscious material of
modem man. It is intelligible, therefore, that avowedlj
animal traits or elements should also appear among the un-
conscious contents by the side of those sublime figures
which from oldest times have accompanied man on the
road of life. The unconscious disposes of a whole world
of images, whose boundless range yields in nothing to the
claims of the world of “real” things. To the one who
personally surrenders himself wholly to the outer world
the unconscious comes in the form of some intimate
and beloved being, in whom, should his destiny lie in
extreme devotion to the personal object, he will experi-
ence the duality of the world and his own nature; in
x Prometheus and Epimetheus , pp. 24 ff.
212 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
like manner there comes to the other a daemonic personi-
fication of the unconscious embodying the totality, the
extreme oppositeness and duality of the world of images.
These are border-line phenomena which overstep the
normal; hence the normal mind knows nothing of these
cruel enigmas. They do not exist for him . It is always only
the few who reach the rim of the world, where its mirage
begins. For the man who stands always upon the normal
path the soul has a human, and not a dubious, daemonic
character ; neither do his fellow-men appear to him in the
least problematical. Only complete abandonment either to
one world or to the other evokes their duality. Spitteler’s
intuition caught that picture of the soul which in a less
profound nature would at most have found utterance in
dreams.
Accordingly we read {ibid., p. 25) :
“ And, while he thus demeaned himself in the fury of his
passion, there played a strange quiver about her mouth and face,
and ever and again her eyelids flickered, shutting and opening
hastily, and behind the soft, delicate fringe of her lashes there
lurked something which threatened and crept about like the fire
which glideth stealthily through the house, or like the tiger stealing
among the bushes while from the dark foliage, in broken flashes,
gleameth ever and anon his yellow mottled flanks.”
The line of life which Prometheus chooses is thus
unmistakably introverted. He sacrifices all connection
with the present, in order to create in anticipation the
distant future.
It is very different with Epimetheus\ he realizes that
his aim is the world, and what the world values.
Hence he says to the angel: “Yet now I long for
truth, and my soul lieth in thy hand ; an it please thee,
therefore, give me a conscience that will teach me * -tion *
and ‘ -ness ’ and eveiy just precept”
Epimetheus cannot resist the temptation to fulfil his
own destiny and submit himself to the " soulless ” point
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 213
of view. This junction with the world is immediately
rewarded.
“ And it came to pass, as Epimetheus rose up, that he felt his
stature was increased and his courage more steadfast ; he was at
one with all his being, and his whole feeling was sound and
mightily at ease. And thus he strode with bold steps through the
valley, on a straight course, as one who feareth no man; and
with a bold glance like a man inspired by the contemplation of his
own riches. ,,
He has, as Prometheus says, bartered his free soul for
“-tion” and “-ness”. The soul is lost to him in favour
of his brother. He has followed his extraversion, and
because this orientates him towards the external object,
he is caught up in the desires and expectations of the
world seemingly at first to his great advantage. He has
become an extravert, after having lived many solitary
years under the influence of his brother as an extravert
falsified through imitation of the introvert
Such involuntary “simulation dans le caract&re”
(Paulhan) occurs not infrequently. His conversion to
true extraversion is, therefore, a step towards ‘ truth ’, and
deservedly brings him a partial reward.
Whilst Prometheus, through the tyrannical claims of
his soul, is hampered in every relation to the external
object and has to make the cruellest sacrifices in the
service of the soul, Epimetheus receives an immediately
effective shield against the danger that most threatens
the extravert, viz. a complete surrender to the external
object This protection consists in the conscience which
is based upon traditional “ right ideas ” ; and which, there-
fore, possesses that not-to-be-despised treasure of inherited
worldly wisdom which is employed by public opinion
in much the same fashion as the judge uses the penal
code. This provides Epimetheus with a circumscribed
code which restrains him from abandoning himself to
objects in the same degree as Prometheus does to his
214 the type-problem in poetry
soul. This is forbidden him by the conscience, which
stands in the place of his soul. When Prometheus turns
his back upon the world of men and its codified con-
science, he falls into the hands of his cruel soul-mistress
with her arbitrary power, and only through endless suffer-
ing does he make expiation for his neglect of the world.
The prudent restraint of a blameless conscience sets
such a bandage over Epimetheus’ eyes that he must
blindly live his myth, but ever with the sense of doing
right, since he dwells in constant harmony with general
expectation, with success ever at his side since he fulfils
the wishes of all. Thus men desire to see the King, and
thus Epimetheus plays his part to the inglorious end, never
forsaken by the strong backing of public approval His
self-assurance and self-righteousness, his unshakable con-
fidence in his general worth, his unquestionable right-doing
and good conscience, present an easily recognizable portrait
of that extraverted character which Jordan depicted.
Compare p. 102 and the following pages, describing the
visit of Epimetheus to the sick Prometheus, where King
Epimetheus is anxious to heal his suffering brother :
“ And when all was duly accomplished the king stepped
forth, and, supported by a friend on the left hand and on the
right, he lifted up his voice in greeting and spake these well-
intentioned words : 1 My heart grieveth me on thy account,
Prometheus, my beloved brother. But now take heart, for
behold I have here a salve of virtue for every ill. Wond'rous
is its healing power both in heat and in frost, and thou mayest
use it alike to comfort or chastize thyself/
“ And speaking thus he took his staff, and bound the salve
fast and proffered it him all warily with weighty mien. But
hardly had Prometheus perceived the odour and aspect of the
ointment than he turned his head away with disgust. 'Where-
upon the King changed the tones of his voice, and began to
cry aloud and to prophesy with great heat : ‘ Of a truth it seemeth
thou hast need of greater punishment, since thy present fate
doth not suffice to teach thee/ And, speaking thus, he drew a
mirror from his cloak, and declared unto him all things from the
beginning, and became very eloquent and knew all his faults/’
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
215
The words of Jordan are speakingly illustrated in this
scene : tc Society must be pleased if possible ; if it will
not be pleased, it must be astonished ; if it will neither be
pleased nor astonished, it must be pestered and shocked.”
In the above scene we find almost the same climax.
In the Orient a rich man makes known his rank by never
showing himself in public unless supported by two slaves.
Epimetheus affects this pose in order to make an im-
pression. Well-doing must at the same time be combined
with admonition and moral discourse. And, as that does
not produce an effect, the other must at least be horrified
by the picture of his own baseness. Thus everything is
aimed towards making an impression.
There is an American saying which runs : “ In
America, two sorts of men make good — the man who can
do something, and the man who can bluff well.” Which
means that pretence is sometimes just as successful as
actual performance. An extravert of this kind preferably
makes his effect by appearance . The introvert tries to
force the situation and to this end may even abuse his
work.
If we fuse Prometheus and Epimetheus into one
personality, we should have a man outwardly Epimethean
and inwardly Promethean — an individual constantly torn
by both tendencies, each seeking to enlist the ego finally
on its side.
2. A Comparison of Spitteler’s with
Goethe’s Prometheus
Considerable interest is to be found in comparing this
Prometheus conception with that presented by, Goethe.
I believe I am justified in the conjecture that Goethe
belongs more vto the extraverted than the introverted
type, while Spitteler would seem to belong to the latter.
Only an exhaustive examination and analysis of Goethe’s
216 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
biography could succeed in establishing the justice of this
assumption. My conjecture is based upon divers impres-
sions, which I will refrain from discussing owing to my
inability to furnish sufficient explanations.
The introverted attitude need not necessarily coincide
with the Prometheus figure, by which I mean that the
traditional Prometheus figure can also be interpreted quite
differently. This other version is found, for instance, in
Plato’s Protagoras, where the distributer of vital powers
to the creature fashioned by the gods in equal measure
out of earth and fire is Epimetheus and not Prometheus.
Prometheus (conforming with classical taste both in this
situation and throughout the myth) is principally the
cunning and inventive genius.
With Goethe two conceptions are presented. In the
Prometheus Fragment of 1773 Prometheus is the defiant,
self-sufficing, godlike, god-disdaining creator and artist.
His soul is Minerva, daughter of Zeus. Prometheus’
relation with Minerva has a clear similarity with the
relation of Spitteler’s Prometheus with his soul. Thus
Prometheus says to Minerva :
" From the beginning thy words have been celestial light to me..
* Ever as tho' my soul spake unto herself ,
She revealed herself ;
And in her of their own accord sister harmonies rang out.
And when I deemed it was myself,
A deity gave utterance ;
And did I dream a god was speaking,
Lo l *twas mine own voice.
And thus with thee and me.
So one, so closely-knit are we.
My love is thine eternally 1 ”
and further :
" As the twilight glory of the departed sun
Hovereth over the gloomy Caucasus,
And encompasseth my soul with holy peace ;
Parting, yet ever present with me.
So have my powers waxed strong,
With every breath drawn from thy celestial air.”
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 217
Thus Goethe’s Prometheus is also dependent upon his
soul. There is a strong resemblance to the relationship
of Spitteler’s Prometheus with his soul. Thus the latter
says to his soul :
“ And though I be stripped of all, yet am I rich beyond all
measure so long as thou alone remainest with me, while * my
friend * falleth from thy sweet lips, and the light of thy proud and
gracious countenance goeth not from me.”
In spite of the similarity of the two figures and their
relations with the soul, there remains, however, an
essential difference. Goethe’s Prometheus is a creator
and artist ; Minerva inspires his clay-images with life.
Spitteler’s Prometheus is suffering rather than creative;
only his soul creates and her creating is secret and
mysterious. She says to him in farewell :
" And now I depart from thee, for lo ! a great work awaiteth
me ; 'tis a mighty deed, and I must hasten to accomplish it.”
It would seem that, with Spitteler, the Promethean
creativeness is allotted to the soul, while Prometheus
himself merely suffers the pangs of a creative soul. But
Goethe’s Prometheus is self-active; he is essentially and
exclusively creative, defying the gods out of the strength
of his own creative power :
“ Who helped me
Against the insolence of the Titans ?
Who rescued me from death ?
From slavery ?
Didst thou not thyself accomplish all
O sacred, glowing heart ? ”
Epimetheus in this fragment is only sparingly sketched ;
he is throughout inferior to Prometheus ; an advocate of
collective feeling, who can only understand the service of
the soul as obstinacy. Thus he says to Prometheus :
" Thou standest alone ! Thy obstinacy knoweth not that
bliss, when the gods and thou and all thou hast, thy world, thy
heaven, are enfolded in one embracing unity.”
218 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
Such indications as are to be found in the Prometheus
fragment are too sparse to enable us to discern the char-
acter of Epimetheus. But the delineation of Goethe’s
Prometheus reveals a typical distinction from the
Prometheus of Spitteler.
Goethe’s Prometheus creates and works outwardly in
the world; he peoples space with the figures he has
fashioned and his soul has animated; he fills the earth
with the offspring of his creation ; he is both master and
educator of man. But with the Prometheus of Spitteler
everything goes to the world within and vanishes in the
darkness of the soul’s depths ; just as he himself disappears
from the world of men, even wandering from the narrow
confines of his home, that he may become the more
invisible. In accordance with the principle of compensa-
tion (a basic principle in our analytical psychology) the
soul, i.e. the personification of the unconscious, must be
especially active in such a case, preparing a work which,
however, is as yet invisible.
Besides the passages already quoted, Spitteler gives
us a complete description of this anticipated compensation-
process. This we find in the Pandora interlude.
Pandora, that enigmatical figure in the Prometheus
myth, is in Spitteler’s creation the divine maid who lacks
every relation with Prometheus but the very deepest.
This conception is founded upon the version of the myth
in which the woman who figures in the Prometheus
relation is either Pandora or Athene.
The Prometheus of mythology has his soul-relation
with Pandora or Athene, as in Goethe. But, in Spitteler,
a noteworthy departure is introduced which, however, is
already indicated in the historical myth, where the
Prometheus-Pandora relation is contaminated with the
Hephaestus-Athene analogy. With Goethe, the version
Prometheus - Athene is preferred. But, in Spitteler,
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
219
Prometheus is removed from the divine sphere and is
given a soul of his own. But his divinity and his original
relation with Pandora in the myth are preserved as a
cosmic counterplot, enacted independently in the celestial
sphere. The* happenings of the other world are the things
that take place on the further side of our consciousness,
that is in the unconscious. The Pandora interlude, there-
fore, is a presentation of what goes on in the unconscious
during the suffering of Prometheus. When Prometheus
vanishes from the world, destroying every link that binds
him to mankind, he sinks into the depths of himself, into
his walled-in isolation — his only object himself. And
‘godlike* withal, for God, according to his definition, is
the Being who is universally self-contained, who by virtue
of his omnipresence has Himself as universal object.
Naturally Prometheus does not feel in the least godlike —
he is supremely wretched. After Epimetheus has come
to spit upon his misery, the interlude in the other world
begins, in that moment, naturally, when all Prometheus*
relations to the world are suppressed to the extreme limit
Experience shows that it is such moments that yield
the unconscious contents the likeliest possibility of gaining
independence and vitality, even to the point of over-
powering consciousness \
Prometheus* condition in the unconscious is reflected
in the following scene :
“ And on the clouded morning of the same day, in a still
and solitary meadow above all the worlds, wandered God, the
creator of all life, pursuing the accursed round in obedience
to the strange nature of his mysterious and sore sickness. For
by reason of this Sickness he could never make an end of his
revolving task, might never find rest for his feet upon the' weary
path ; but ever with measured stride day after day, and year
after year, with heavy gait, and bowed head, with furrowed
brow and distorted countenance, must he make the round of
1 Cf. Jung, The Content of the Psychoses ( Collected Papers , ch. xii) :
Idem, Psychology of the Unconscious .
220
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the still meadow; whilst ever towards the mid-point of the
circle sped his darkling eye. And as to-day he performed the
daily inevitable round, while the more sorrowfully he sunk
his head, and the more he dragged his heavy steps for weariness,
as though the grievous vigils of the night had spent the very
fountain of his life, there came to him through the night and the
dim dawn. Pandora, his youngest daughter, who approached
with uncertain steps, honouring the hallowed ground, and stood
there humbly at his side, greeting him with modest glance, and
questioned him with lips that held a reverential silence/’
It is at once evident that God has the malady of
Prometheus. Just as Prometheus allows all his passion,
his whole libido to flow inwards to the soul, to his inner-
most depths, in complete dedication to his soul’s service,
his God also pursues his course round and round the
pivot of the world, thus spending himself like Prometheus,
whose whole being comes near to extinction. Which
means that his libido has entirely passed over into the
unconscious, where an equivalent must be prepared ; for
libido is energy which cannot disappear without a trace —
it must always create an equivalent. The equivalent is
Pandora and the gift she brings the father, for she brings
him a precious jewel which she intends for the easing of
men’s woes.
If we translate this process into Prometheus’ human
sphere, it would mean that while Prometheus is suffering
his ‘godlike’ state, his soul is preparing a work destined
to alleviate the sufferings of mankind. His soul wants to
get to men. Yet the work which his soul actually plans
and carries out is not identical with the work of Pandora.
Pandora’s jewel is an unconsciously mirrored image which
symbolically represents the actual work of Prometheus’
soul. The text shows unmistakably what the jewel is. It
is a God-deliverer, a renewal of the sun K This longing
expresses itself in the sickness of the God : he longs for
1 Respecting this theme of the treasure and rebirth, I must refer
the reader to my book Psychology of the Unconscious.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
221
rebirth, and to this end his whole life-force flows back into
the centre of the self, i.e. into the depths of the unconscious,
out of which life is born anew. This may explain why
the appearance of the jewel in the world is depicted in
such curious assonance with the scene of the birth of
Buddha in the Lalitavistara 1 .
Pandora lays the jewel beneath a walnut tree (just as
Maya bears her child under a fig-tree) : —
“ In the midnight shades beneath the tree it glows and sparkles
and flames, and, like the morning star in the dark heavens, its
diamond lightning flashes afar. Then sped on eager wing the
bees and butterflies, which danced above the flower garden
to play and sport around the wonder child . . . and out of the
heavens came larks in steep descent, eager to pay homage to the
new and lovelier sun-countenance , and as they drew near and
beheld the bright radiance, their hearts swooned. . . . And,
enthroned over all, fatherly and benign, the chosen tree with his
giant crown and heavy mantle of green, held his kingly hands
protectingly over the faces of his children. And all his ample
branches bowed themselves lovingly down and leaned towards
the earth as though they wished to screen and ward off curious
eyes, jealous that they alone might enjoy the gift’s unmerited
favour ; while all the myriads of gently-moving leaves fluttered
and trembled with rapture, murmuring in joyous exultation a
soft, clear-toned chorus in whispered accord : ' Who could know
what lies hidden beneath this lowly roof, or guess the treasure
reposing in our midst.’ '*
So with Maya, who, when her hour was come, bore her
child beneath the Plaksa fig-tree, which drooped its
sheltering crown to earth.
From the incarnate Bodhisattva unimaginable radiance
extended over the world ; Gods and Nature alike took
part in the birth. As Bodhisattva treads the earth there
grows at his feet an immense lotus, and standing in the
lotus he views the world. Hence the Thibetan prayer:
* Om ntani padme hum ” (“ Oh ! behold the jewel in the
lotus”).
The moment of re-birth finds Bodhisattva beneath
i Spitteler, l.c. t p. 126.
222
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the chosen bodhi-tree, where he becomes Buddha (the
Enlightened One). This re-birth, or renewing, is
accompanied by the same dazzling light, the same prodi-
gies and apparitions of gods, as at the birth.
But in the kingdom of Epimetheus, where in place of
the soul conscience reigns, the inestimable treasure gets
lost. The angel raging over the stupidity of Epimetheus,
reviles him : — * And hadst thou no soul, that like the wild
and unreasoning beasts thou should’st hide thyself from
the wondrous Godhead ? ” 1
We see that Pandora’s jewel is a renewal of the god,
a new god; but this takes place in the heavenly sphere,
i.e. in the unconscious. Such intimations of the process
as penetrate consciousness are not understood by the
Epimethean element, which dominates the relation to the
world. This is elaborately presented by Spitteler in the
following passages [l.c., pp. 132 ff.], in which we see how
the world, i.e. the conscious, with its rational attitude and
objective orientation, is unfitted to make a true estimate
of the value and significance of the jewel. For which
reason the jewel is irretrievably lost.
The renewed god signifies a renewed attitude, i.e. a
renewed possibility of intense life, a recovery of life;
because, psychologically, God always signifies the greatest
value, hence the greatest sum of libido, the greatest
intensity of life, the optimum of psychological activity.
Accordingly with Spitteler the Promethean, just as much
as the Epimethean, adaptation proves to be inadequate.
The two tendencies are dissociated: the Epimethean
attitude harmonizes with the actual conditions of the
world ; the Promethean, on the contrary, does not, which
means that the latter must Work out a renewal of life.
This tendency creates also a new attitude to the world
1 Spitteler depicts the famous " conscience ” of Epimetheus as
a little animal. It corresponds to the opportunist instinct of animal*
223
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
(the world to which the jewel is given); but of course
without the consent of Epimetheus. Nevertheless, in the
Pandora gift, as represented by Spitteler, it is not difficult
to recognize a symbolic attempt to solve that same
problem we discussed in the chapter on the Schiller
Letters, viz. the problem of the reconciliation of the
differentiated and undifferentiated functions.
Before we proceed further with this problem, however,
we must turn back to Goethe’s Prometheus. As we have
already seen, there are unmistakable differences between
the creative Prometheus of Goethe and the suffering figure
of Spitteler. A further and more important distinction
lies in the relation with Pandora. With Spitteler, Pandora
is a being of the other world, a duplicate of the soul of
Prometheus belonging to the divine sphere ; but, with
Goethe, she is altogether the creature and daughter of
the Titan, and therefore in absolute dependence upon him*
The relation of Goethe’s Prometheus with Minerva puts
him in the place of Vulcan, and the fact that Pandora
is wholly his creature, and does not figure as a being
of divine origin, makes him a creative deity, thus re-
moving him altogether from the human sphere. Hence
Prometheus says :
“ And when I deemed it was myself,
A deity gave utterance.
And did I dream a god was speaking*
Lo 1 ’twas mine own voice ! ”
With Spitteler, on the other hand, Prometheus is
stripped of all divinity, even his soul is only an unofficial
daemon ; his divinity becomes a law unto itself, quite
severed from the human. Goethe’s conception is classical
to this extent: it emphasizes the divinity of the Titan.
Accordingly Epimetheus, by contrast, must also be very
inferior, whilst with Spitteler, he appears as a much more
positive character. In Goethe’s Pandora, we are fortunate
*2 4 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
in possessing a work which conveys a far more complete
portrait of Epimetheus than the fragment so far discussed.
There, Epimetheus introduces himself as follows : —
“ For me day and night are as one.
And ever I bear with me the old evil of my name.
For my progenitors named me Epimetheus.
Thinking on the past, hasty-actioned ;
Backward-turning, with troubled phantasies.
To the melancholy opportunities of past days ;
Such bitter toil was laid upon my youth.
That turning impatiently towards life,
I seized the present heedlessly.
But only won tormenting burdens of fresh care."
With these words Epimetheus reveals his nature; he
broods over the past, and can never free himself from
Pandora, whom (according to the classical myth) he has
taken to wife, i.e. he cannot rid himself of her imaged
memory, although she herself has long since deserted him,
leaving him her daughter Epimeleia (Anxiety), but taking
with her Elpore (Hope).
Epimetheus is here so clearly figured that we are at
once able to recognize which psychological function he
represents. While Prometheus is still the same creator
and modeller, who daily rises early from his couch with
the same unconquerable urgency to create and to influence
the world, Epimetheus is entirely given up to phantasies,
dreams, and memories, full of anxious misgivings and
troubled deliberations. Pandora appears as the creature
of Hephaestus, rejected by Prometheus but chosen by
Epimetheus for a wife. He says of her : “ Even the pains
which such a treasure brings are pleasure.”
Pandora is to him a precious treasure, in fact the
supreme value:
“ And forever is she mine, the glorious one !
Supreme delight hath she revealed to me 1
I possessed Beauty, and Beauty hath enfolded me.
In the wake of spring splendidly she came.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 225
I knew her, I caught her, and there was it done.
Clouding thoughts vanished like a mist.
She lifted me from earth to Heaven.
Seek’st thou for words worthily to praise her ?
Would 1 st thou extol her, she is already beyond thee.
Set thy best beside her, ’tis at once worthless.
Her words bewilder thee, but lo ! she is right.
Thou mayest oppose her, the fight she doth win.
Thou faltereth in serving her, but yet art her thrall.
Goodness and love would she ever repay.
High esteem helpeth not, she bringeth it low.
She setteth her goal, and taketh her flight.
If she barreth thy way, at once she doth hold thee.
Would’ st thou make her an offer, she’ll raise thee thy bid.
Till thou givest riches and wisdom and all in the bargain.
She descendeth to earth in myriad forms.
She hovereth o’er waters, she strideth the plains.
In divine proportions she shineth, proclaimeth,
With form ennobling the inner meaning.
When giving, she lendeth him power supreme.
Radiant with youth she came, in womanly form."
For Epimetheus, as these verses clearly show, Pandora
has the significance of a soul-image — she represents his
soul ; hence her divine power, her unshakable superiority.
Wherever such attributes are conferred upon certain per-
sonalities we may with certainty conclude that such
personalities are symbol-bearers ; in other words imagines
of projected unconscious contents. For it is the contents
of the unconscious which operate with the supreme power
above described, and especially in the way incomparably
seized by Goethe in the line :
“ Would’ st thou make her an offer, she’ll raise thee thy bid."
In this line the characteristic affective reinforcement
of certain conscious contents through association with
analogous unconscious contents is beautifully pictured.
This reinforcement has in it something daemonic and
compelling, and thus has a ‘ divine ’ or * devilish effect
We have already described Goethe’s Prometheus figure
as extraverted. It is still the same in his Pandora^
226
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
although here, the relation of Prometheus with the soul,
the unconscious feminine principle is lacking. Instead,
however, Epimetheus appears as the introvert, directed
towards his inner world. He broods, he recalls memories
out of the grave of the past, he “ reflects He differs
absolutely from SpittelePs Epimetheus. We might say,
therefore, that here (in Goethe’s Pandora) the position
indicated earlier — where Prometheus becomes the extra-
verted man of affairs, and Epimetheus the brooding in-
trovert — has actually transpired. This Prometheus has
somewhat the same quality in extra verted form as Spitteler’s
in the form of the introvert. In the ‘Pandora’, on the
contrary, Prometheus is definitely creative for collective
ends; he has set up a regular manufactory in his mountain,
where necessary articles for the whole world are produced.
Hence, he is cut off from his inner world, which relation
now devolves Upon Epimetheus, namely that secondary
and purely reactive thinking and feeling of the extravert
which possess all the characteristics of the relatively
undifferentiated function. Thus it comes about that
Epimetheus is unconditionally pledged to Pandora, be-
cause in every respect she is superior to him. Psycho-
logically, this means that the conscious Epimethean
function of the extravert, namely that phantastic, brooding,
ruminating fancy, becomes intensified by the intervention
of the soul. If the soul is coupled with the relatively
undifferentiated function, we must draw the conclusion
that the superior, i.e. the differentiated, function is too
collective. It is in the service of the collective conscience 1 ,
and not in the service of freedom. Wherever such a case
occurs (and it happens very frequently), the less differ-
entiated function, t\e. the “other side”, is reinforced by
a pathological egocentricity. The extravert fills up his
spare time with melancholic or hypochondriacal musing; he
* Spitteler's 11 -h*it ” und “ -keit ” (" -tion ” and 11 -ness ”).
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
223
may even have hysterical phantasies and other symptoms 1 ;
while the introvert wraps himself about with compulsive
feelings of inferiority, which take him unawares and put
him into a no less dismal plight*.
The resemblance between the Prometheus of the
“ Pandora” and the Prometheus of Spitteler goes no
further. He is merely the collective ‘itch for action*,
which in its onesidedness signifies a repression of the
erotic. His son Phileros (“he whom Eros loves”) is
simply erotic passion ; for, as the son of his father, he
must, as is often the case with children, retrieve under
unconscious compulsion the unlived lives of his parents.
The daughter of Epimetheus, the unreflecting, the type
that acts heedlessly after first deliberating, is significantly
Epimeleia (Anxiety). Phileros loves Epimeleia, Pandora’s
daughter, and thus the guilt of Prometheus, who has re-
jected Pandora, is expiated. Prometheus and Epimetheus
become simultaneously reconciled, whereby the Promethean
industry turns out to be unrecognized erotism, while
Epimetheus’ persistent reference to the past is shown to
be rational misgivings, which might well check the equally
persistent productiveness of Prometheus and restrain it
within reasonable bounds.
This effort of Goethe to find a solution, which appears
to be evolved from an extraverted psychology, brings us
back to Spitteler’s attempt, which we left for the time being
in order to discuss Goethe’s Prometheus figure.
Spitteler’s Prometheus, like his God, turns away from
the world, the periphery, and gazes inwards to the middle
point, that “ narrow passage ” of re-birth. This concentra-
tion, or introversion, brings the libido gradually into the
1 In place of these, a compensatory outburst of sociability may
appear and a more intense impulse to social claims; in the eager
pursuit of which forgetfulness is sought.
s As compensation, a morbid and feverish activity may appear,
which also servep the purposes of repression.
228 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
unconscious, whereby the activity of the unconscious
contents is increased — the soul begins to “work,” and
creates a product which tends to emerge from the un-
conscious into consciousness. The conscious, however,
has two attitudes — the Promethean, which withdraws the
libido from the world, introverting without giving out, and
the Epimethean, which is constantly responding in a
soulless fashion, held by the claims of external objects.
When Pandora makes her gift to the world it means,
psychologically, that an unconscious product of great
value is on the point of reaching extraverted consciousness,
i.e. it is seeking a relation to the real world. Although the
Promethean side, ie. the artist intuitively apprehends the
great value of the work, his personal relations to the world
are so subordinated to the tyranny of tradition that the
work is merely appreciated as a work of art and not at its
real significance, viz. as a symbol that promises a renewal
of life. In order to convert it from a purely aesthetic
interest into a living reality, it must also reach life, and be
accepted and lived in the sphere of reality. But if the
attitude is mainly introverted and given to abstraction,
the extraverted function is inferior, and is therefore under
the spell of collective restrictiveness. This restrictiveness
prevents the soul-created symbol from living. Thus the
jewel gets lost; but one cannot really live if “God”,
i.e. the highest symbolic expression of living value,
cannot also become a living fact Hence the loss of
the jewel also signifies the beginning of Epimetheus’
downfall.
And now the enantiodromia begins. Instead of taking
for granted, as every rationalist and optimist is inclined to
do, that a good state will be followed by a better, since
everything tends towards “upward development”, the
man of blameless conscience and universally acknowledged
moral principles makes a compact with Behemoth and his
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
229
evil host, and even the divine children entrusted to his
care are bartered to the devil.
Psychologically, this means that the collective, undiffer-
entiated attitude to the world stifles man’s highest values ;
it thus becomes a destructive power, whose influence multi-
plies until a point is reached when the Promethean side,
namely the ideal and abstract attitude, places itself at the
service of the soul, and, like a true Prometheus, kindles
for the world a new fire. Spitteler’s Prometheus has to
come out of his solitude and tell men, even at the risk of
his life, that they are in error, and where they err. He
must acknowledge the relentlessness of truth, just as
Goethe’s Prometheus, in Phileros, has to experience the
relentlessness of love.
That the destructive element in the Epimethean attitude
is actually this traditional and collective restrictiveness is
clearly shown in Epimetheus’ raging fury against the
“lamb”, an obvious caricature of traditional Christianity.
In this affect something gleams through which is already
familiar to us in the approximately contemporary Asses’
Feast of Zarathustra. It is the expression of a contem-
porary tendency.
Mankind is constantly inclined to forget that what was
once good does not remain good eternally. He goes along
the old ways that once were good, long after they have
become injurious to him,* only through the greatest
sacrifices and with untold suffering can he rid himself of
this delusion, and discern that what was good once is now
perhaps grown old and is good no longer. This is so in
the little things as in the big. The ways and customs of
his childhood, once so sublimely good, he can barely lay
aside even when their harmfulness has long since been
proved. The same, only on a gigantic scale, is the case
with historical changes of attitude. A general attitude
corresponds with a religion, and changes of religion belong
*3* THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
to the most painful moments in the world’s history. In
this respect our age has a blindness without parallel. We
think we have only to declare an acknowledged form of
faith to be incorrect or invalid, to become psychologically
free of all the traditional effects of the Christian or Judaic
religion. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual
change of opinion had somehow a deeper influence on
emotional processes, or indeed upon the unconscious 1 We
entirely forget that the religion of the last two thousand
years is a psychological attitude, a definite form and
manner of adaptation to inner and outer experience, which
moulds a definite form of civilization; it has, thereby,
created an atmosphere which remains wholly uninfluenced
by any intellectual disavowal. The intellectual change is,
of course, symptomatically important as a hint of coming
possibilities, but the deeper levels of the psyche continue
for a long time to operate in the former attitude, in accord-
ance with psychic inertia. In this way the unconscious
has preserved paganism alive. The ease with which the
classic spirit springs again into life can be observed in
the Renaissance. The readiness with which the vastly
older primitive spirit reappears can be seen in our own
time, even better perhaps than in any other historically
known epoch.
The more deeply rooted the attitude, the more effective
must be the means that shall set it free. “ltcrasez
l’infame”, the cry of the age of enlightenment, heralded
the religious upheaval within the. French revolution, which,
viewed psychologically, meant nothing but an essentia]
readjustment of attitude, which, however, was lacking
in universality. The problem of a general change of
attitude has never slept since that time ; it leaped to the
surface again in many prominent minds of the nineteenth
century. We have seen how Schiller sought to master
the problem. In Goethe’s treatment of the Prometheus and
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY *31
Epimetheus problem we again recognize the attempt to
make some sort of reconciliation between the more highly
differentiated function, corresponding with the Christian
ideal of favouring the good, and the relatively undifferen-
tiated function whose repression and non-recognition
corresponds with the Christian ideal of rejecting the evil \
In the symbols of Prometheus and Epimetheus, the diffi-
culty which Schiller endeavoured to master philosophi-
cally and aesthetically, is shrouded in the garment of the
classical myth. Therewith something happens which, as
I pointed out earlier, is altogether typical and regular:
namely, when a man meets a difficult task which he
cannot master with the means at his command, a retrograde
movement of the libido automatically begins, i.e. a regres-
sion occurs. The libido draws away from the problem
of the moment, becomes introverted, and activates a
more or less primitive analogy of the conscious situation
in the unconscious together with an earlier mode of
adaptation. This law determines Goethe’s choice of a
symbol: Prometheus was the saviour who brought life
and fire to mankind languishing in darkness. Goethe’s
deep scholarship could easily have found another saviour ;
the actual form of the determinant, therefore, is not
sufficiently explained. The explanation must lie rather
in the classical spirit, which was felt to contain an
absolutely compensatory value for that particular time
(the turning point of the eighteenth century) ; it was
expressed in every possible way, in aesthetics, philosophy,
morals, even politics (philhellenism). It was the Paganism
of antiquity, glorified as “ freedom ”, “ naivete ”, “ beauty ”,
and so on, which responded to the yearnings of that time.
This yearning, as Schiller so cleaurly shows, arose from
1 Of. Goethe's Geheimnisse. There the Rosicrudan solution is
attempted, namely the reconciliation of the rose and the cross, Dionysos
and Christ. The poem leaves us cold. One cannot pour new wine
into old bottles.
232 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
a feeling of incompleteness, of spiritual barbarism, of
moral servitude, of ugliness. These feelings proceeded
collectively and individually from a one-sided valuation,
whose inevitable consequences enabled the psychological
dissociation between the more highly and the less differen-
tiated functions to become manifest. The Christian dis-
memberment of mankind into a valuable and worthless
portion was unbearable to that age, ' which, compared
with earlier times, was much more highly sensitized.
Sinfulness had stumbled upon the idea of an everlasting,
natural beauty, a conception which was already possible
for that age ; it reached backwards, therefore, to an older
time when the idea of sinfulness had not yet disrupted
the unity of mankind, when both the higher and lower
in human nature could still live together in complete
naivetd without offending moral or aesthetic susceptibilities.
But the effort towards a regressive renaissance shared
the fate of the Prometheus Fragment and the Pandora;
it was still-born. The classical solution would no longer
do, for the intervening centuries of Christianity, with their
profound tides of spiritual experience, could not be denied.
Hence the penchant for the antique had to content itself
with a gradual attenuation into the medieval form. This
process becomes manifest in Goethe’s Faust y where the
problem is seized by the horns. The divine wager
between good and evil is accepted. Faust, the medieval
Prometheus, enters the lists with Mephistopheles, the
medieval Epimetheus, and makes a pact with him. And
here the problem is already so well focussed that we
can see that Faust and Mephisto are one and the same
individual. The Epimethean element which refers all
things to the retrospective angle, and leads them back
into the original chaos of "fluid shapes of possibilities,”
is sharpened into the form of the devil whose evil power
opposes every living thing with “ the cold devil’s fist ” and
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*33
who would force the light back into the maternal darkness
from which it was bom. The devil has throughout a true
Epimethean thinking, the “ nothing but ” intellectual
attitude, which reduces everything living to original
nothingness. The naive passion of Epimetheus for the
Pandora of Prometheus becomes Mephistopheles’ devil’s
plot for the soul of Faust And the cunning foresight of
Prometheus in declining the divine Pandora is expiated
in the tragedy of the Gretchen episode and the yearning
for Helen, with its belated fulfilment, and in the endless
ascent to the heavenly Mothers (“ The eternal feminine
draws us upwards ”).
We have the Promethean defiance of the accepted gods
in the figure of the medieval magician. The magician
has preserved a trace of primitive paganism 1 ; in himself
there is an element still untouched by the Christian
cleavage, i,e. he has access to the unconscious that is still
pagan, where the opposites still lie together in their
primeval naivete, beyond the reach of “ sinfulness,” but
liable, when accepted into conscious life, to beget evil as
well as good with the same primeval and therefore
daemonic force. (“A part of that power which ever
willeth evil while ever creating the good ”)*.
He is, therefore, a destroyer as well as a deliverer.
Hence this figure is pre-eminently fitted to become the
bearer of the reconciling symbol. Moreover, the medieval
magician has laid aside the antique nalvet6 which is
no longer possible, and through stem experience has
thoroughly absorbed the Christian atmosphere. His
pagan element immediately urges him to a complete
Christian denial and mortification of self ; his craving for
deliverance is so imperative that every possible means
1 We frequently find that it is the representatives of older nationali-
ties who possess magical powers. In India it is the Nepaulese, in
Europe the gipsies, and in Protestant regions the Capuchin friars.
* Faust, Part r, Sc. i : Studierzimmer.
234 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
must be seized. But in the end the Christian attempt
at solution also fails, and .then it is seen that it is
precisely the longing for deliverance, the obstinacy and
self-confidence of the heathen element, which offers the
real possibility for deliverance, because the anti-christian
symbol affords a possibility for the acceptance of evil.
Goethe's intuition, therefore, has apprehended the problem
with enviable clarity. It is certainly characteristic that
the other more superficial attempts at solution — the
Prometheus Fragment , the Pandora, and the Rosicrucian
compromise 1 with its attempt at a syncretism of
Dionysian joyousness with Christian self - sacrifice —
remained uncompleted.
Faust’s redemption begins with his death. His life
sustains the Promethean divine character which only falls
from him in death, i.e. with his re-birth. Psychologically,
this means that the Faust attitude must cease before the
unity of the individual can be accomplished. The figure
which first appeared as Gretchen and then on a higher
level as Helen, and finally became exalted into the Mater
Gloriosa, is a symbol that I cannot now exhaust of its
manifold meanings. I will merely point out that it deals
with the same archaic image with which the Gnosis was
so profoundly concerned, viz. the idea of the divine harlot,
Eve, Helen, Mary, and Sophia- Achamoth.
3. The Significance of the Reconciling Symbol
If from the standpoint now gained we glance once
more at the unconscious elaboration of the problem by
Spitteler, we appreciate at once that the compact with evil
originates, not in the atm of Prometheus, but in the
thoughtlessness of Epimetheus, who only possesses a
collective conscience and no power of discrimination for the
i Die Geheimnisse.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
235
things of the inner world. As invariably happens with the
collective standpoint that is orientated to the object, he
allows himself to be determined exclusively by collective
values, and consequently overlooks what is new and
original.
Current collective values are certainly mensurable by
the objective standard, but only a free and unfettered
valuation — a matter of living feeling— can yield a true
estimate of the thing that is newly created. But such an
appreciation belongs to the man possessing a soul, and
not merely relations to external objects.
The downfall of Epimetheus begins with the loss of the
new-born, divine image. His incontestably moral thinking,
feeling, and acting in no way hinder the evil, hollow, and
destructive from creeping in. This invasion of evil signifies
a conversion of something previously good into something
definitely harmful. In this fashion Spitteler expresses
the idea that the moral principle hitherto prevailing,
although excellent to begin with, loses with the lapse of
time its essential connection with life, since it no longer
embraces the abundance and variety of life. The ration-
ally correct is too meagre a concept upon which to found
a hope for an adequate and permanent expression of life
in its totality. But the irrational occurrence of the divine
birth stands beyond the frontiers of the rational kingdom.
Psychologically, the divine birth heralds the fact that a
new symbol, a new expression of supreme vital intensity,
is being created. Every Epimethean element in man and
every Epimethean man is incapable of comprehending
this event Yet from this moment the supreme intensity
of life is to be found only upon the new line. Every other
direction falls gradually away, dissolving into oblivion.
The new symbol, the bestower of life, springs from
Prometheus' love for his soul, a figure pregnant with
daemonic characters. One may be sure, therefore, that,
236 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
interwoven in the new symbol with its living beauty, there
is also the element of evil, for, if not, it would lack the glow
of life as well as beauty since life and beauty are naturally
indifferent to morality. For this reason, Epimethean
collectivity finds no value in it For it is quite blinded
by its one-sided moral standpoint, which is identical with
the “ lamb ”, i.e. the traditional Christian standpoint The
raging of Epimetheus against the “lamb” is therefore
merely “ £crasez l’infame ” in a new form, a revolt against
the established Christianity which was unable to com-
prehend the new symbol wherewith to guide life upon
a new way.
Such a reaction, however, might remain entirely unpro-
ductive were there no poets who could fathom and read
the collective unconscious. They are the first in their
time to divine the darkly moving mysterious currents, and
to express them according to the limits of their capacity
in more or less speaking symbols.
They make known, like true prophets, the deep motions
of the collective unconscious, “the will of God" in the
language of the Old Testament, which, in the course of
time, must inevitably come to the surface as a general
phenomenon. The redemptive significance of the deed of
Prometheus, the downfall of Epimetheus, his reconciliation
with his soul-serving brother, and the vengeance Epimetheus
wreaks upon the “lamb” — recalling in its note of cruelty
the scene (Dante, Inferno xxxii.) between Ugolino and
the Archbishop Ruggieri — prepares a solution of the
conflict that involves a deadly revolt against traditional
collective morality.
We may assume in a poet of modest limits that the
summit of his work does not overtop the height of his
personal joys, sorrows, and aspirations. But with Spitteler
his work quite transcends personal destiny. For this
reason his solution of the problem does not stand alone.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*37
From here to Zarathustra, the breaker of the tables, is only
a step. Stimer also joined the company after Schopenhauer
had first conceived the idea of denial. He spoke of the
denial of the world. Psychologically, * the world * means
how I see the world, my attitude to the world ; thus the
world can be regarded as ‘ my will ’ and 4 my presentation/
In itself the world is indifferent It is my Yes and No
that create the differences.
The idea of negation, therefore, is concerned with an
attitude to the world, and particularly Schopenhauer’s
attitude to it, which on the one hand is purely intellectual
and rational, while on the other it is a mystical identity
with the world in his most individual feeling. This attitude
is introverted; it suffers therefore from its typological anti-
thesis. But Schopenhauer’s work in many ways transcends
his personality. It voices what was obscurely thought and
felt by many thousands. Similarly with Nietzsche : pre-
eminently his Zarathustra brings to light the contents
of the collective unconscious of our time; in him, therefore,
we also find the same distinguishing features : iconoclastic
revolt against the conventional moral atmosphere, and
the acceptance of the 44 ugliest man ”, which in Nietzsche
leads to that shattering unconscious tragedy presented in
Zarathustra. But what creative minds bring up out of
the collective unconscious also actually exists, and sooner
or later must make its appearance in collective psychology.
Anarchy, regicide, the constant increase and splitting off
of an anarchistic element upon the extreme socialist left,
with an avowed programme that is absolutely hostile to
culture — these are phenomena of mass-psychology, which
were long adumbrated by poets and creative thinkers.
We cannot, therefore, afford to be indifferent to the
poets, since in their principal works and deepest inspira-
tions they create from the very depths of the collective
unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. But
*38 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
what the poets proclaim is only the symbol in which
they sense aesthetic pleasure, without any consciousness
of its true meaning.
That poets and thinkers have an educational influence
upon their own and succeeding epochs I would be the
last to dispute; but it seems to me that their influence
essentially consists in the fact that they voice rather more
clearly and resoundingly what all know, and, only in so
far as they express this universal unconscious “knowledge”,
have they any considerable effect, whether educational or
seductive. The greatest and most immediately suggestive
effect is gained by the poet who knows how to express
the most superficial levels of the unconscious in a success-
ful form. Should the vision of the creative mind search
more deeply, it becomes all the more strange to mankind
in the mass, and provokes an even greater resistance in all
those who occupy conspicuous positions in the eyes of
the mass. The mass does not understand it although
unconsciously living what it expresses; not because the
poet proclaims it, but because its life issues from the
collective unconscious into which he has peered. The
more thoughtful of the nation certainly comprehend
something of his message, but, because his utterance
corresponds with events already developing among the
mass and also because he anticipates their own aspira-
tions, they hate the creator of such thoughts, not at all
viciously, but merely ' from the instinct of self-protection.
When apprehension of the collective unconscious reaches
a depth where conscious expression can no longer grasp
its content, it cannot be decided at once whether it is a
morbid product we have to deal with, or whether some-
thing quite incomprehensible because of its extraordinary
depth. An imperfectly understood yet deeply significant
content has usually a somewhat morbid character. And
morbid products are as a rule significant. But in both
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*39
cases the approach is difficult. If it ever arrives at all,
the fame of these creators is posthumous, and often delayed
for several centuries. Ostwald’s opinion that, at the most,
a highly gifted mind of to-day would obtain recognition
within a decade or so was not, I hope, intended to reach
beyond the realm of technical discoveries ; for, if so, such
an assertion would be extremely ludicrous.
There is another point of particular importance to which
I feel I ought to refer. The solution of the problem
in Faust , in the Parsifal of Wagner, in Schopenhauer,
even in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra , is religious. That
Spitteler is also drawn towards a religious setting is
therefore not to be wondered at When a problem is
accepted as religious, it gains a psychological significance
of immense importance ; a value is involved which relates
to the whole of man, hence also the unconscious (the realm
of the gods, the other world, etc.). With Spitteler the
religious form possesses such an exuberant wealth that
its specially religious quality loses in depth, although it
certainly gains in mythological richness, in archaic as
well as prospective symbolism. The luxuriating mytho-
logical web makes the work difficult of approach, as it
also tends to shroud the problem from comprehension and
a possible solution. The abstruse, grotesque, and uncouth
quality that always clings to mythological exuberance
hinders the flow of sympathy, alienates one’s sensibility
from the work, and gives the whole work a rather dis-
agreeable suggestion of a certain type of originality
which can only successfully escape the charge of psychic
abnormality by a painstaking and scrupulous adaptation in
other directions. However fatiguing and unpalatable such
mythological exuberance may be, it has the advantage of
allowing the symbol to expand and develop in a relatively
unconscious unfolding, whereby the conscious wits of the
poet are quite at a loss as to how to assist in the expression
240 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
of the meaning. Thus he labours with single mind in the
husbandry of the mythological yield and its plastic develop-
ment Spitteler’s poem differs, in this respect, both from
Faust and from Zarathustra^ for in these works there is a
greater conscious participation on the part of the poet in
the meaning of the symbol ; accordingly the mythological
luxuriance in Faust and the intellectual exuberance in
Zarathustra are pruned down to the advantage of the
desired solution. Both Faust and Zarathustra are, for this
reason, far more beautiful than Spitteler’s Prometheus. But
the latter, as a more or less faithful image of the actual-
processes of the collective unconscious, has deeper truth.
Faust and Zarathustra are of the very greatest assist-
ance in the individual mastery of the problem in question ;
but Spitteler’s Prometheus and Epimetheus , thanks to its
abundant harvest of mythological material, provides not
only a more general appreciation of the problem, but also
its manner of appearance in collective life. The principal
revelation of the unconscious religious contents in Spitteler’s
work, is the symbol of the God-renewal \ which is subse-
quently more fully expanded in the Olympian Spring.
This symbol appears in the most intimate connection
with the type and function antithesis, and manifestly
bears the significance of an effort to find the solution in
a renewal of the general attitude, which in the language
of the unconscious is expressed as a renewal of God. The
God-renewal is a familiar archetypal image, that is quite
universal ; I need only mention the whole complex of the
dying and rejuvenating God with all its mythological
precursors, down to the re-charging of fetishes and
churingas with magical force. The image affirms a
transformation of attitude by which a new potential of
energy, a new manifestation of life, a new fruitfulness
have come into being. This latter analogy explains
the connection — for which there is abundant proof—
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
241
between the God-renewal and seasonal and vegetational
phenomena.
There is a natural inclination to confine astral or lunar
myths to these seasonal and vegetational analogies. In
so doing, however, we entirely lose sight of the fact that
a myth, like everything psychic, cannot be solely con-
ditioned by outer events. The psychic product brings
with it its own inner conditions, so that one might assert
with equial right that the myth is purely psychological
and merely uses the facts of meteorological or astronomical
processes as material for expression. The arbitrariness
and absurdity of so many of the primitive mythical
assertions make the latter version appear more frequently
applicable than any other.
The psychological point of departure for the god-
renewal corresponds with an increasing divergence in the
manner of application of psychic energy or libido.. One
half of the libido moves towards a Promethean, while the
other towards an Epimethean, manner of application.
Such an opposition is, of course, a very great hindrance
not only in society but also in the individual Hence the
optimum of life recedes more and more from the opposing
extremes, and seeks out a middle way, which must
necessarily be irrational and unconscious, just because
the 'opposites are rational and conscious.
Since the middle position, as a function of mediation
between the opposites, possesses an irrational character, it
appears projected in the form of a reconciling God, a
Messiah or Mediator. To our Western forms of religion,
which are still too primitive in matters of discernment or
understanding, the new possibility of life appears in the
figure of a God or Saviour, who, in his fatherly care and
love and from his own inner resolve, puts an end to the
division, in his own time and season, for reasons we are
not fitted to understand. The childishness of this con-
242
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
ception is self-evident. The East has for thousands of
years been familiar with this process, and has founded
thereon a psychological doctrine of salvation which brings
the way of deliverance within the compass of human
intention. Thus both the Indian and the Chinese religions,
as also Buddhism which combines the spheres of both,
possess the idea of a redeeming middle path of magical
efficacy which is attainable through a conscious attitude.
The Vedic conception is a conscious attempt to find
release from the pairs of opposites in order to gain the
path of redemption.
(a) The Brahmanic Conception of the Problem oj the Opposites
The Sanskrit term for the pair of opposites in the
psychological sense is Dvandva, Besides the meaning of
pair (particularly man and woman), it denotes strife,
quarrel, combat, doubt, etc. The pairs of opposites were
ordained by the Creator of the world :
“ Moreover, in order to distinguish actions, he separated
merit from demerit, and he caused the creature to be affected by
the pairs of opposites , such as pain and pleasure.” 1
As further pairs of opposites, the commentator Kulluka
names desire and anger, love and hate, hunger and thirst,
care and folly, honour and disgrace. “ Beneath the pairs
of opposites must this world suffer without ceasing.” 2
Not to allow oneself to be influenced by the pairs of
opposites (nirdvandva — free, untouched by the opposites),
but to raise oneself above them, is then an essentially ethical
task, since freedom from the opposites leads to redemption.
In the following passages I give a series of examples :
i. From the book of Mann : 8 “ He who becometh indifferent
towards all objects by the disposition of his feelings attaineth
1 M&nava-Dhannaf&stra, i, 26 Sacred Books of the East , xxv (p. 13).
2 R&m&yana, ii, 84, 20.
8 MOnava-Dharm af&stra, vi, 80 fi., pp. 212-3.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
* 43
eternal blessedness, as much in this world as after death. Who-
soever in this wise hath gradually surrendered all bonds and
freed himself from all the opposites, reposeth in Brahman.” 1 * *
2. The famous exhortation of Krishna 8 : “ The Vedas speak
of the three Gunas 8 : nevertheless, O Arjuna be thou indifferent
concerning the three Gunas, indifferent towards the opposites
(nirduandva), ever steadfast in courage”.
3. In the Yogasutra of Patanjali we find 4 : “ Then (in
deepest contemplation, samadhi) cometh that state which is
untroubled by the opposites.” 5 *
4. Concerning the wise one : 8 “ Both good and evil deeds doth
he shake off in that place ; they who are known unto him and
are his friends take upon them his good deeds, but they who
are not his friends, his evil works : and like one who faring fast
in a chariot looketh down upon the chariot wheels, so upon day
and night, upon good and evil deeds and upon all opposites,
doth he look down ; but he, freed from good and evil deeds, as
knower of Brahman, entereth into Brahman.”
5. (To the one who is called to meditation). “ Whosoever
overcometh desire and anger, the cleaving to the world and the
lust of the senses ; whoso maketh himself free from the opposites,
and relinquisheth the feeling of self (above all self-seeking),
that one is released from expectation.” 7
6. Pandu, who desires to be a hermit, says : “ Clothed with
dust, housed under the open sky, I will take my lodging at the
root of a tree, surrendering all things loved as well as unloved,
tasting neither grief nor pleasure, forfeiting blame and praise
alike, neither cherishing hope, nor offering respect, free from
the opposites {nirdvandva), with neither fortune nor belongings.” 8
7. “ Whosoever remaineth the same in living as in dying,
in fortune as in misfortune, whether gaining or losing, in love
and in hatred, will be redeemed. Whoso nothing pursueth and
regardeth nothing of small account, whoso is free from the oppo-
sites (nirdvandva), whose soul knoweth no passion — he is wholly
delivered. Whosoever doeth neither right nor wrong, renouncing
1 ‘Rr fl.Tima.ti is the 'designation generally applied to the Supreme
Soul ( paramtUman ), or impersonal, all-embracing, divine essence,
the original source and ultimate goal of all that exists. (Encyclo.
Brit.)
8 Bhagaoadgm, ii.
8 Qualities or factors or constituents of the world.
4 Deussen, AUgemeine Geschichte d. Philosophic, i, 3, pp. 51 1 ff.
8 Yoga is well-known as a system of training for the attainment
sf the higher states of redemption.
8 Kaushttakf- Upanishad, 1-4.
7 Tejovindu- Upanishad, 3.
1 MahdbhOrata, 1-119, 8 ft
244
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the treasure of (good and evil) deeds heaped up in former lives,
whose soul is tranquil when the bodily elements vanish away,
whoso holdeth himself free from the opposites, that one is re-
deemed.” i
8. “ Full thousand years have I enjoyed the things of sense,
while still the craving for them springeth up unceasingly. These,
therefore, will I renounce and direct my mind upon Brahma ;
indifferent towards the opposites ( nirdvandva ) and, freed from
the feeling of self-will, I will roam with the wild (creatures).” *
9. " Through forbearance to all creatures, through the ascetic
life, through self-discipline and freedom from desire, through
the vow and the blameless life, through equanimity and endurance
of the opposites, will man share the bliss in Brahma, who is
without qualities.” 8
10. “ Whosoever is free from overweening vanity and delusion
and hath overcome the frailty of dependence, whoso remaineth
faithful to the highest Atman, whose desires are extinguished,
who remaineth untouched by the opposites of pleasure and pain —
that one released from delusion shall attain that imperishable
state.” 8
It follows from these quotations 5 that it is external
opposites, such as heat and cold, which must first be
denied psychic participation in order that extreme affective
fluctuations like love and hatred, etc., may also be avoided.
Affective fluctuations are the natural and constant
accompaniments of every psychic antithesis — hence of
every antagonism of ideas, whether moral or otherwise.
Such affects, as we know by experience, are proportion-
ately greater, the more the exciting factor affects the
totality of the individual. The meaning of the Indian
aim is therefore clear: its purpose is to redeem human
nature altogether from the opposites, to attain a new life
in Brahman, to win a state of deliverance, and at the same
1 Mah&bh&rata, adv, 19-4 ff.
8 BhOgavata-Pur&na , ix, 19, x8 ff. " After he hath put off silence
and non-silence, thus will he become a Brahmana.” Brihaddranyaka-
Upamshad, 3, 5.
8 Bh&gavata-Pur&na, iv, 22, 24.
4 Garuda-Pur&na, 16, no.
8 I am indebted to the kind help of Dr Abegg of Zurich, the Sanskrit
specialist, for these, to me somewhat inaccessible, citations (Nos.
193, 201-5)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*45
time God. Brahman, therefore, must signify the irrational
union of the opposites — hence their final overcoming.
Although Brahman, as the cause and creator of the
world, has created the opposites, they must again be
resolved in Him, if He is to signify the state of redemption.
In the following passages I give a group of examples :
1. “ Brahman is sat and asat, the existing and non-existing,
satyam and asatyam, reality and unreality.’ 1 1
а. “ In truth, there are two forms of Brahman ; the formed
and the formless, the mortal and the immortal, the solid and the
fluid, the definite and the indefinite.” *
3. “ God, the creator of all things, the great Self, who dwelleth
eternally in the hearts of men, is discernible by the heart, by
the soul, by the mind ; who knoweth that, gaineth immortality.
When the light hath dawned, then is there neither day nor night,
neither being nor not-being.” 8
4. “ Two things are eternal, in the infinite supreme Brahman
contained, knowing and not-knowing. Perishable is not-knowing,
eternal knowing, yet He who as lord controlleth them is the Other.”*
5. “ In the heart of this creature is concealed the Self, smaller
than the small, greater than the great. By the grace of the
Creator a man freed from desires and released from affliction
beholdeth the majesty of the Self. Though sitting still, he
wandereth far ; he extend eth over all, yet lieth in one place.
Who is there, beside myself, able to know this God, who rejoiceth
yet rejoiceth not ? ” 1 * * * 5 * * 8
б. “ One there is — without stirring and yet swift as thought —
Speeding hence, not even o’ertaken by the gods —
Standing still, it surpasseth all the runners — the wind-god
Wove among the strands of its being the primordial water.
Resting, it is yet ever restless :
It is distant and yet so near.
It is indwelling in all things.
Yet is it outside everything.” •
1 Deussen, i, 2, p. 117, l.c.
* BrihadOranyaka- Upanishad, 2, 3 (Sacred Boohs xv) (Definite
*< sat ”, lit. being or this, and indefinite—" tya ”, lit. that or here-
after).
8 Svet&svatara- Upanishad, 4, 17 ff. * Svetdsvatara- Upanishad, 5, 1.
5 Deussen here translates : " He sitteth, yet wandereth further.
He lieth, yet everywhere hovereth. Concerning the swaying hither
and thither of God, who understandeth it save myself ? ” Katha-
XJpanishad , 1, 2, 20 ff.
8 IfOnUpanishad, 4-5 (Deussen)
246 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
7. “ Like as a falcon or an eagle tiring after wide circuits
in the windy spaces of heaven foldeth his wings and droppeth
to quiet cover, so urgeth the spirit toward that state whose repose
no desire troubleth nor delusion entereth.
“ That is its true being, from yearnings, from evil, and from
fear delivered. Like unto a man in the embrace of a beloved
wife, unaware of things without or things within, is the spirit
that is embraced by the all-discerning self.*’ (Brahman) .1
“ This one second is an ocean, free from duality : this, O
King I is the world of Brahman. Thus Yajnavalkya taught
him. This is his highest goal, this his dearest success, this his
greatest world and this his supreme rapture. 1 * *
8. “ What is agile, flying and yet standing still.
What breatheth yet draweth no breath, what doseth the
eyes.
What beareth the whole manifold Earth,
And bringeth all together in unity.** 8
These quotations show, that Brahman is the recon-
ciliation and dissolution of the opposites — hence standing
beyond them as an irrational factor . 4 It is a divine
essence as well as the Self (in a lesser degree, of course,
than the analogous Atman-concept) ; it is also a definite
psychological state, characterized by detachment from
emotional fluctuations. Since suffering is an affect, the
release from affects means deliverance. Release from
the fluctuations of affects, which means from the tension
of opposites, is synonymous with the way of redemption
that gradually leads to the state of Brahman. In a certain
sense, therefore. Brahman is not only a state, but also a
process, a “durde crdatrice ”. It is, therefore, not surprising
that the symbolical expression of this Brahman concept
in the Upanishads makes use of all those symbols which
I have termed libido symbols 6 . The following are a few
appropriate examples :
1 This describes the resolution of the subject-object antithesis.
8 Brihad&ranyaka- Upanishad, 4, 3.
2 Atharvaveda , 10, 8, ix. (Deussen)
4 Hence Brahman is quite beyond knowledge and comprehension.
8 Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*47
(£) Concerning the Brahmanic Conception of the
Reconciling Symbol
1. “ When it is said : Brahman first in the East was bom,
it meaneth, each new day like yonder sun Brahman is reborn
in the East/’ i
2. “ Yonder man in the sun is Parameshtin, Brahman,
Atman.” *
3. “ Yonder man, whom they point out in the sun, that is
Indra, Prajapati, Brahman.” 8
4. “ Brahman is a light like unto the sun.” 4
5. “ What is this Brahman but that which gloweth yonder
as the sun’s disc.” 8
6. “ Brahman first in the East was bom :
From the horizon the Gracious One appeareth in splendour;
The forms of this world, the deepest, the highest.
He lighteth ; the cradle He is, of what is and is not.
Father of the shining ones. Creator of the treasure,
Many-forined he appeareth in the spaces of the air :
They glorify Him in hymns of praise ; The Eternal Youth
Which Brahman is increaseth ever through Brahman* s
(decree)
Brahman brought forth the deities. Brahman created the
world.” 8
• I have emphasized certain specially characteristic
passages with italics; from these it would appear that
Brahman is not only the producing one but also that
which is produced, the ever-becoming. The epithet
“Gracious One” (Vena), here bestowed upon the sun, is
in other places given to the seer who is endowed with
the divine light, for, like the Brahman-sun, the mind of
the seer also traverses “earth and heaven contemplating
Brahman ”. 7 This intimate relation, identity even, of
the divine being with the Self (Atman) of mankind, is
1 gatap. Brdhtn ., 14, x, 3, 3. (Deussen).
■ Taitt . Ar., 10, 63, 15. (Deussen).
8 Qankh . Br., 8 , 3. (Deussen).
4 Vaj. Samh ., 23, 48. (Deussen).
8 <?atap. Br ., 8, 5, 3, 7. (Deussen).
4 Taitt. Br., 2, 8, 8, 8. ft. (Deussen).
7 Atharvaueda , 2, 1, 4, 1, 11,5.
248
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
generally recognised. I mention the following example
from the Atharvaveda :
“ The disciple of Brahman advanceth, reanimating both worlds.
In him all the gods are unanimous.
He containeth and upholdeth the earth and the heavens.
He even feedeth the master with his tapas.i
To the Brahman disciple there come, to visit him.
Fathers and Gods, singly and in multitudes :
And he nourisheth all the Gods by tapas."
The Brahman disciple is himself an incarnation of
Brahman, from which the identity of the Brahman-essence
with a definite psychological state is clearly established.
7. “ Prompted by the Gods, the sun bumeth there in splendour
unsurpassed ;
From him froceedeth Brahman-force , supreme Brahman.
Yea, even all the Gods ; and what he maketh dieth not.
The Brahman disciple upholdeth Brahman resplendent.
Interwoven in him are the hosts of the Gods** *
Brahman is also Prana — breath of life and the cosmic
life-principle; Brahman is also Vayu — Wind, which is
referred to in the Brihadaranyaka - Upanishad (3, 7) as the
cosmic and psychic life-principle. 8
8. “ He who is this (Brahman) in man, and the One who is
that (Brahman) in the sun, are both one." 1 * * 4
9. (Prayer of one dying) : “ The countenance of truth (of
Brahman) is covered by a golden disc. Open this, O Pushan
(Savitir, sun), that we may behold the nature of truth. Unfold
and assemble thy holy rays, O Pushan, thou only seer, Yama,
Surya (sun), son of PrajapatL I behold the light, thy loveliest
semblance. What he is, I a.~m (i.e. the man in the sun). 5
10. “ And this light, which spreadeth above this heaven
higher than all, higher even than those in the highest world,
above and beyond which there are no more worlds, this is the
same light that bumeth in the inner world of man. Whereof we
have this visible token; only to feel warmth and perceive bodies." 6
1 The practice of self-brooding. Cf. Jung, Psychology of the Un-
conscious.
* Atharvaveda , n, 5, 23 ft. (Deussen). ® Deussen, AUg. Gesch. d.
Phil., 1, 2, pp. 93 ff. 4 Taitt.- Up., 2, 8, 5. (Max MttUer). « BrihadOr.-
Up., 5 i 1 & (Max MttUer). 6 Khandogya- Up., 3, 13, 7 if. (Max
MttUer).
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 249
11. “As a grain of rice, or barley, or millet, yea like even
unto the kernel of a millet-seed is this spirit in the inner Self,
golden, like a flame without smoke ; and greater is it than, the
heavens, vaster than space, greater than this earth, surpassing
all beings.
It is the soul of life, it is my own soul : departing hence,
into this soul shall I enter.” 1
13. In the Atharvaveda , 10, 2, Brahman is conceived as the
vitalistic principle, the life-force, which fashions all the organs
and their respective instincts.
“ Who planted the seed within him, that he might ever
spin the thread of generation, who assembled within him the
powers of mind, gave him voice and play of features ? ”
Even the power of man originates in Brahman. From
these examples, whose number could be multiplied in-
definitely, it clearly follows that, by virtue of all its
attributes and symbols, the Brahman concept is in full
harmony with that idea of a dynamic or creative element,
which I have named 1 libido ’. The word Brahman means :
1, prayer; 2, incantation; 3, sacred speech; 4, sacred
knowledge (Veda); 5, holy life; 6, the absolute; 7, the
sacred caste (the Brahmans). Deussen stresses the prayer-
significance as being especially characteristic 2 . Brahman
is derived from barh^ farcire, ‘ swelling’ 8 , i.e. ‘prayer'
conceived of as “ the upward-urging will of man striving
towards the holy, the divine”.
A certain psychological state is indicated in this
derivation, namely a specific concentration of libido which
through overflowing innervations produces a general state
of tension, and hence is associated with the feeling of
swelling. Thus in colloquial references to such a state,
images of overflowing, e.g. ‘one cannot restrain oneself',
‘bursting', etc. are frequently used. (“What filleth the
heart, goeth out by the mouth").
1 galop. Brahm., 10, 6, 3. (Deussen)
* Allg. Gesch. d. Phil., 1, 1, pp. 240 ff.
* This is confirmed by the reference to Brahman-prana . Matrifvan
(** he who swelleth within the mother ”). Atharvaveda , 11, 4, 15.
i *
250 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
Indian practice seeks to accomplish this state of
damming or heaping-up of libido by systematically with-
drawing the attention (libido) alike from objects, and from
psychic states, in a word from the ‘opposites*. This
elimination of sense-perception and blotting-out of con-
scious contents leads inevitably to a lowering of
consciousness in general (just as in hypnosis), whereby the
unconscious contents, i.e. the primordial images, which
possess a cosmic and superhuman character on account
of their universality and immense antiquity, become
activated.
Those age-old allegories of sun, fire, flame, wind,
breath, etc., which from earliest time have symbolized
the begetting, world-moving, creative power, have all come
about in this way. Since I have made a special study of
these libido-images in another work 1 , I will not further
expand this theme here. The idea of a creative world
principle is a projected perception of the living essence
in man himself.
In order to preclude all vitalistic misunderstandings,
one is well advised to make an abstract conception of this
essence as energy . But, on the other hand, that hypostas-
izing of the energy-concept in the fashion of modern
energetics must, of course, be firmly rejected.
Since an energic current necessarily presupposes the
existence of an opposition, i.e. of two states of differing
potential, without which no current can take place, the
concept of opposition is also associated with the energy-
concept. Every energic phenomenon (and there are no
phenomena that are not energic) manifests both beginning
and end, upper and lower, hot and cold, earlier and
later, cause and effect, etc., i.e. pairs of opposites. This
inseparability of the energy-concept fr^m the concept of
opposition also involves the libido-concept. Hence libido-
1 Jong, Psychology of the Unconscious.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 251
symbols of a mythological or philosophic-speculative
character, are either represented by a direct antithesis or
become immediately broken up into opposites. In a
former work I have already referred to this inner splitting
of the libido, thereby provoking a certain opposition,
though not justifiably, so it seems to me, since the
immediate association of a libido-symbol with the concept
of opposition is sufficient justification. We also find this
association in the Brahman concept or symbol. The
character of Brahman as prayer, and at the same time
as primordial creative force, the latter being resolved
into the opposition of sexes, is very remarkably presented
in a hymn of Rigveda : 1
“ And ever unfolding, this prayer of the singer
Became a cow, which was before the world existed ;
Dwelling together in this womb of God,
Fledgelings of the same brood are the Gods.
What hath been the wood, and what was the tree.
Out of which Earth and Heaven were hewn.
The twain, changeless and eternally helpful.
When days vanished and the dawn's first flush came not.
Greater than He nothing existeth ;
He is the bull, upholding earth and heaven
The cloud sieve he girdleth like a fleece ;
When He, the Lord, driveth like Surya His cream horses.
As an arrow of the sun He irradiateth the wide earth.
As the wind scattereth the mist, He stormeth through creatures,
When he cometh as Mitra , as Varuna chasing around.
' As Agni in the forest, he distributeth glowing light .
When driven to him, the cow brought forth.
Mooed , freely-pasturing , the unmoved thing she created .
She hors the son , the one who was older than the parents — ”
That the idea of opposition is closely bound up with
the world creator is presented in another form in Qatapatka-
Brahmanam, 2, 2, 4 :
“ In the beginning was Prajapati alone ; he meditated :
How can I propagate myself ? So he travailed and practised
1 Rigveda , 10, 31, 6. (Deussen).
t Cosmic creative principle — libido. Taitt. Samh., 5, 5, 2, 1 :
" When he had created them, he instilled love into all his creatures.*'
252 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
tapas : i then he begat Agni (fire) out of his mouth ; because he
begat him out of his mouth, 2 therefore is Agni food-devourer,
Prajapati reflected : As food-devourer have I created this Agni
out of myself ; but there existeth here nothing else beside myself that
he may devour, for at that time the earth was quite barren ;
neither herbs nor trees were there : and this thought was heavy
upon him. Then turned upon him Agni with gaping maw . Thus
spake unto him his own greatness : Sacrifice / Then knew
Prajapati : This, my own greatness hath spoken unto me ; and he
sacrificed. Thereupon he ascended, he bumeth yonder (the sun) ;
thereupon he rose up, he that purifieth here (the wind). Because
Prajapati sacrificed in this wise, he propagated himself, and,
because death in the form of Agni would have devoured him, he
also saved himself from death.”
The sacrifice is always the renunciation of the valuable
part ; the sacrificer thus avoids being eaten up ; this does
not mean a transformation into the opposite, but a
unification and adjustment, from which there arises a new
libido-direction or attitude to life; sun and wind are
generated. It is stated in another place in the Qatapatha-
Brahmananty that one half of Prajapati is mortal, the
other immortal 8 .
Similar to the way Prajapati divides himself into bull
and cow is his division into the two principles Manas
(mind) and Vac (speech). “This world was Prajapati
alone, Vac was his Self, and Vac his second Self (his alter
ego) ; thus he meditated : This Vac will I send forth, and
she shall go hence and pervade all things. Then he sent
forth Vac, and she went and filled this universe .” 4 This
passage is of especial interest, inasmuch as speech is here
conceived as a creative, extraverted libido-movement, as
a diastole in Goethe’s sense. There is a further parallel
in the following passage : “ In truth Prajapati was this
world, with him was Vac his second Self: with her did he
1 Solitary meditation, asceticism, introversion.
2 The begetting of fire from the mouth has a noteworthy relation
to speech. Cf. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious .
• Cf. Dioscuri motive in Psychology of the Unconscious (Jung).
2 Deussen, Allg. Gesch . d. Phil., i, i, p. 206 ; Pancav. Br., 20, 14, 12.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 253
beget life : she conceived : whereupon she went forth out
of him, and made these creatures, and once again entered
into Prajapati.’* 1 In the Qatapatha-Br. y 8, 1, 2, 9, the
share attributed to Vac is a prodigious one : “ Truly Vac
is the wise Vifvakarman, for through Vac was this whole
world made.” However, in Qatap. Br., 1, 4, 5, 8, the
question of precedence between Manas and Vac is decided
differently :
“ Upon a time it came to pass that Mind and Speech strove for
priority one with the other. Mind said : ‘ I am better than thou,
for thou speakest nothing that I have not first discerned.* Then
said Speech : * I am better than thou, since I announce what thou
hast discerned and make it known.* To Prajapati they went, for
the question to be judged. Prajapati decreed for Mind saying :
• Truly is Mind better than thou ; for thou dost copy what Mind
doeth and runnest in his tracks : moreover, it is the inferior who
is wont to imitate his betters.* ** *
These passages show that the World-creator can also
divide himself into Manas and Vac, who are themselves
mutually opposed. As Deussen points out, both principles
are first contained within Prajapati, the world-creator.
This appears in the following text : “ Prajapati yearned :
‘ I wish to be many, I will multiply myself.* Then silently
he meditated in his manas ; what was in his manas
fashioned Crihat # ; then he pondered ‘This lieth in me as
the fruit of my body, through vac will I bring it to birth.*
Thereupon made he vac” etc. 4
This passage shows the two principles in their character
of psychological functions ; namely, manas as introversion
of the libido with the creation of an inner product ; vac
as the divesting function or extraversion. With this
explanation we can now understand a further text 6
relating to Brahman :
1 Weber, Indisehe Studien , 9, 477.
* Quoted from Deussen, Allg. Gesch. d. Phil ., 1, 1, p. 206.
* The name of a soman — Song.
4 Deussen, lx ., 1, i, 205. Pancav. Br ., 7, 6.
* £atap. Br , xx, 2, 3. (Deussen).
2 54
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
“ Brahman made two worlds. When he had come into this
other world, he pondered : ' How can I reach again into the
world ? ’ Twofold did he extend himself into this world, through
Form and through Name . These twain are the two great monsters
of Brahman ; whosoever knoweth these two great monsters of Brah-
man becometh like unto them these twain are the two mighty aspects
of Brahman
A little later “ form ” is explained as manas (“ manas
is form, for man knoweth through manas what this form
is ”), and “ name ” is shown to be vac (“ for through vac
man seizeth the name”). Thus the two “monsters” of
Brahman emerge as manas and vac, hence as two psychic
functions, with which Brahman can ‘ extend himself' into
two worlds, clearly signifying the function of ‘relation.’
The form of things is ‘conceived’ or ‘taken in’ by intro-
verting through manas; names are given to things by
extraverting through vac. Both are bound up with the
relations and adaptations or assimilations of things. The
two monsters are also evidently regarded as personi-
fications; an indication of this lies in their other title
“ aspects ”=*yaisha, since yaksha is an equivalent of
daemon, or superhuman being. Psychologically, personi-
fication always signifies a relative independence (autonomy)
of the personified contents, i.e. a relative splitting-off from
the psychic hierarchy. A content of this kind is not
obedient to voluntary reproduction, but either reproduces
itself spontaneously or in some similar way becomes
insulated from consciousness . 1 For instance, when an
incompatibility exists between the ego and a certain
complex, such a cleavage is produced. As is well known,
one frequently observes this dissociation between the ego
and the sexual complex. But other complexes may also
become split-off, the power-complex, for instance, corre-
sponding with the sum of all those aspirations and ideas-
which aim at the acquisition of personal power.
1 Cf. Jung, Dementia Pracox (1907)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
2 55
There is, however, another sort of cleavage, namely
the splitting-off of the conscious ego , together with a selected
function from the remaining components of the personality
This cleavage may be defined as an identification of the
ego with a certain function or group of functions. A
dissociation of this kind is very often seen in men who
are too deeply immersed in one of their psychic functions,
thereby differentiating it as their only conscious function
of adaptation.
A good literary example of such a man is provided
by Faust at the beginning of the tragedy. The remain-
ing elements of the personality approach in the form of
the poodle, and later as Mephistopheles. According to
my view, we should not be justified in interpreting
Mephistopheles as a split -off complex, as repressed
sexuality for instance, in spite of the fact, which is
undoubtedly borne out by many associations, that
Mephistopheles also represents the sexual complex.
This explanation is too limited, for Mephistopheles
is more than mere sexuality — he is also power ; with the
exception of thinking and research he is practically the
whole life of Faust The result of the pact with the devil
shows this most distinctly. What undreamed-of possi-
bilities do not unfold themselves to the rejuvenated Faust !
The correct view, therefore, would seem to be that Faust
identifies himself with the one function and therewith
becomes split off from the personality as a whole. Sub-
sequently, the thinker in the form of Wagner also becomes
split off from Faust.
Conscious capacity for one-sidedness is a sign of the
highest culture. But involuntary one-sidedness, i.e. ina-
bility to be anything but one-sided, is a sign of barbarism.
Hence we find among half-savage peoples the most one-
sided differentiations, as, for instance, certain aspects of
Christian asceticism which are an affront to good taste,
256 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
and parallel phenomena among the Yogis and Tibetan
Buddhists.
For the barbarian, this tendency to fall a victim to
one-sidedness in one way or another, thereby losing sight
of his whole personality, is a great and constant danger.
The Gilgamesh epic, for example, begins with this conflict
In the barbarian the one-sided libido movement breaks out
with daemoniacal compulsion; it possesses the character
of Berserker rage and “running amok” The barbaric
one-sidedness presupposes a certain stunting of instinct;
this is lacking in the primitive, because in general he is
still free from the one-sidedness of the semi-civilized
barbarian.
Identification with one definite function at once pro-
duces a tension between the opposites. The more com-
pulsive the one-sidedness, i.e. the more untamed the
libido which urges to one side, the more daemoniacal is
its quality. When a man is carried away by his uncon-
trolled, undomesticated libido, he speaks of daemoniac
possession or of magical effect In this way manas and
vac are indeed potent daemons, since they can work
mightily upon men. All things that exercise powerful
effects were regarded either as gods or daemons. Thus,
in the Gnosis, manas became personified as the serpent-
like nous, vac as Logos. Vac bears the same relation to
Prajapati as Logos to God. The sort of daemons that
introversion and extraversion may become is for us an
everyday experience. With what irresistible persuasion
and force the libido streams within or without, with what
unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude *
can take root, we see in our patients and can feel in our-
selves. The description of manas and vac as monsters
of Brahman is in complete harmony with the psycho-
logical fact that at the instant of its appearance the libido
divides into two streams, which as a rule alternate
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
*57
periodically but at times may also appear simultaneously
in the form of a conflict, rfamely an outward stream
opposing an inward stream. The daemonic quality of
the two movements lies in their ungovernable nature
and superior power. These qualities are, of course, in
evidence only when the instinct of the primitive is already
so curtailed that a natural and appropriate counter-move-
ment against his one-sidedness is prevented; and where
that culture which might assist him so far to tame his
libido as to be able voluntarily and deliberately to par-
ticipate in its introverting and extraverting tides is not
yet sufficiently advanced.
(c) The Reconciling Symbol as the Principle of Dynamic
Regulation
In the foregoing passages from Indian sources we have
followed the development of the redeeming principle from
the pairs of opposites, and have traced the origin of the
pairs of opposites to the same creative principle, thereby
gaining an insight into a law-determined psychological
occurrence which is found to be easily reconcilable with
the concepts of our modern psychology.
This impression of a law-determined event is also
conveyed to us from Indian sources, since they identify
Brahman with Rita. What then is Rita ? Rita signifies :
established order, regulation, direction, determination,
sacred custom, statute, divine law, right, truth. According
to etymological evidence its root-meaning is : ordinance,
(right) way, direction, course (to be followed). That which
is ordained by Rita fills the whole world, but the particular
manifestations of Rita are in those Nature-processes which
always remain constant, and inevitably arouse the idea
of regulated recurrence : u By Rita's ordinance the heaven-
bom dawn was lighted.” “ In obedience to Rita ” the
Ancient Ones who order the world “ made the sun to mount
258 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the heavens ”, who himself “ is the burning countenance
of Rita”. Around the he'avens circles the year, that
twelve-spoked wheel of Rita which never ages. Agni is
called the offspring of Rita. In the doings of man, Rita
operates as the moral law, which enjoins truth and the
straight way. “ Whosoever followeth Rita y findeth a thorn-
less path and fair to walk in”
In so far as they represent a magical repetition or re-
production of cosmic events, Rita also appears in religious
rites. As the streams flow in obedience to Rita and the
crimson dawn is set ablaze, so “under the harness 1 of
Rita” is the sacrifice kindled; upon the path of Rita,
Agni brings the sacrifice to the gods. “Pure of magic,
I invoke the gods ; with Rita I do my work, and shape
my thought ”, are the words of the sacrificer. Although
the Rita concept does not appear personified in the Veda,
yet, according to Bergaigne a certain tinge of concrete
being undoubtedly clings to it. Since Rita expresses an
ordering of events, we find “ paths of Rita”, “ charioteers”*
and “ ships of Rita ” ; on occasion the gods appear as
parallels. The same attribute, for instance, is given to
Rita as to Varuna. Mitra also, the ancient sun-god, is
brought into relation with Rita (as above). Concerning
Agni we read : “ Thou shalt become Varuna, if thou
strivest after Rita” 8 . The gods are the guardians of
Rita 4 . I have selected a group of essential references :
i. “ Rita is Mitra, for Mitra is Brahman and Rita is Brah-
man.” 8
Suggesting the horse, which indicates the dynamic nature of the
Rita concept.
* Agni is called the charioteer of Rita. Vedic Hymns (Sacred
Books, advi) p. 158 ; 7, p. 160 ; 3, p. 229 ; 8.
* Cf. Oldenburg, Nachr . d. Gott. Ges . d. Wiss., 1915, p. 167 ff.
Religion des Veda, p. 194. For this reference I am indebted to the
kindness of Dr Abegg of Zurich.
4 Deussen, Allg. Gesch. d. Phil., 1, 1, p. 92
4 fatapatha- Brdhmanam, 4, 1, 4, 10. (Eggeling).
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
259
2. “ Giving the cow to the Brahmans man gaineth all the
worlds, for in her is Brahman contained in Rita, and Tapas
also.” 1
3. “ Prajapati is called the first-born of Rita/’ *
4. “ The gods followed the laws of Rita.” *
5. " He who saw the hidden one (Agni), and drew nigh to
the streams of Rita.” 4
6. “ O wise one of Rita, know Rita 1 Bore and release Rita’s
many streams.” 5
The boring refers to the worship of Agni, to whom
this hymn is dedicated. (Agni is here called the “red
bull of Rita ”). In the worship of Agni, fire obtained by
boring is used as a magic symbol of the regeneration of
life. Here clearly -the “boring” of the streams of Rita
bears the same significance, namely the streams of life
rise again to the surface, libido is freed from its bonds 6 .
The effect produced by the ritual fire-boring, or through
the recital of hymns, is naturally regarded by the believers
as the magical effect of the object ; in reality, however,
it is an ‘ enchantment * of the subject, namely an intensi-
fication of vital feeling, a release and propagation of life-
force, a restoration of psychic potential.
7. Thus we find : “ Though he (Agni) creepeth away, yet unto
Mm straightway goeth the prayer. They (the prayers) have led
forth the flowing streams of Rita.” 7
The revival of living feeling, of this sense of streaming
energy, is very generally likened to a spring gushing from
its source, to the melting of the iron-bound ice of winter
1 Atharvaveda, 10, ro ,33. (Deussen). * Atharvaveda, io, 12, i, 61.
(Bloomfield). 8 Vedic Hymns (Sacred Books , advi), p. 54. 4 Vedic
Hymns , p. 61. 5 Vedic Hymns , p. 393-
4 Release of libido is obtained through ritual work. The release
brings the libido to the disposal of consciousness. It becomes domesti-
cated. From an instinctive, undomesticated state it is converted
into a state of disposability. This is depicted in a verse which runs :
*' When the rulers, the bountiful lords, brought Him forth (Agni) by
their power from the depths , they released Him from the form of the
huB Vedic Hymns , p. 147.
7 Vedic Hymns, p. 174.
z6o THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
in springtime, or to the breaking of long drought by
rain \
8. The following passage is in harmony with this theme :
“ With full udders the lowing milch cows of Rita were over-
flowing. The streams which implored the favour (of the gods)
from afar, have broken through the mountain rocks with their
floods. ,, 2
This imagery clearly suggests a tension of energy, a
damming up of libido, and its release. Rita here appears
as the possessor of blessing, of “lowing milch cows” and
as the ultimate source of the released energy.
9. Corresponding with the image of rain as a symbol of the
release of libido, we find the following passage : “ The mists
fly, -the clouds thunder. When he who is swollen with the millr
of Rita, is led upon the straightest path of Rita ; then Aryaman,
Mitra and Vanina, (He who transformeth the earth) fill the
leathern sack (the clouds) in the womb of the lower (atmosphere)
It is Agni who, swollen with the milk of Rita, is likened
here to the force of lightning, that bursts forth from
massed clouds heavy with rain. Here Rita appears again
as the actual source of energy, whence Agni also is bom ;
this is explicitly mentioned in the Vedic Hymns , p. 161, 7.
Rita is also path, i.e. regulated process.
10. “ With acclamations have they greeted the stream of
Rita, which lay hidden by the birth-place of God, nigh unto
His throne. There did He drink, when, still divided. He dwelt
in the womb of the waters.” 4
This passage confirms what was just said about Rita as
the source of libido, in which God dwells and whence He
is brought forth in the sacred ceremonies. Agni is the
positive appearance of hitherto latent libido ; He is the
accomplisher or fulfiller of Rita, its “charioteer” (see
above); He harnesses the two long-maned red mares of
Rita. 5 He even holds Rita like a horse, by the bridle.
1 Cf. the Tishtrya Lied . Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious .
* Vedic Hymns, p. 88. * Vedic Hymns, p. 103.
4 Vedic Hymns, p. 160, 3. * Vedic Hymns, p. 244, 6, and p. 316, 3,
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
261
( Vedic Hymns , p. 382). He brings the gods to mankind,
i.e. He brings their force and their blessing ; they
represent definite psychological states, in which the feeling
and energy of life flow with greater freedom and joy,
where the pent ice is broken. Nietzsche catches this state
in that wonderful verse :
“ Thou who with spear of flame
Dissolveth the ice of my soul l
Storming now she hasteneth
Toward the sea of her highest hopes.”
11. The following invocations are in harmony with this
theme : “ Let the divine gates, the multipliers of Rita, be flung
wide. Open the much desired gates, that the gods may come
forth. Let night and morning — the young mothers of Rita, be
seated together upon the ritual grass, etc.” 1
The analogy with the rising sun is unmistakable. Rita
appears as the sun, since out of night and twilight is the
new sun bom.
12. “ Open ye for our succour, O divine doors easy of access.
Ever more and more fill the sacrifice with blessedness : (with
prayers) we draw nigh unto night and morning — the multipliers
of living power , the two young mothers of Rita.”
There is no need, I think, for further examples to show
that the concept of Rita, like sun and wind etc., is a libido-
symbol. Only the Rita concept is less concretistic, and
contains the abstract element of established direction and
lawfulness, z.e. the determined and ordered path or
process.
Already, therefore, it is a philosophical libido-symbol
which can be directly compared with the Stoic concept
elfiapfievfi . With the Stoics ei pxipfjJvij had, of course, the
significance of a creative primordial heat, and at the same
time a determined, regulated process (hence also its mean-
ing — “ compulsion by the stars ”). It is self-evident that
libido as a psychological energy concept corresponds with
1 Vedic Hymns , p. 153 and p. 8.
26 a TOE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
these attributes ; since a process always proceeds from a
higher potential to a lower, the energy-concept includes
the idea of a determined, directed process eo ipso. It is
the same with the libido-concept, which merely signifies
the energy of the process of life. Its laws are the laws of
vital energy. Libido as an energy concept is a quantita-
tive formula for the phenomena of life, which are naturally
of varying intensity.
Like physical energy, libido passes through every con-
ceivable transformation ; we find ample evidence of this
in the phantasies of the unconscious and in the myths.
These phantasies are primarily self-representations of the
energic transformation processes, which follow their
natural and established laws, their determined “way” of
evolution. This way signifies both the line or curve of
the optimum of energic discharge as well as the corre-
sponding result in work. Hence this “way” is simply
the expression of flowing and self-manifesting energy.
The way is Rita, the “ right way ”, the flow of vital energy
or libido, the determined course upon which the ever-
renewing process is possible. This way is also destiny,
in so far aS destiny is dependent upon our psychology.
It is the way of our vocation and our law.
It would be quite wrong to assert that such an aim
is merely naturalism , by which one means a complete
surrender to one’s instincts. An assumption is herewith
involved that the instincts have a constant “downward”
tendency, and that naturalism is a non-ethical rechute
upon an inclined plane. I have nothing against such an
interpretation of naturalism, but I am bound to observe
that the man who is left to his own devices, and has
therefore every opportunity for backsliding, as for instance
the primitive, not only has a morality and a legislation
but one which in the severity of its demands is often
considerably more exacting than our civilized morality
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY *63
Whether, for the primitive good and evil have a value
which differs from ours, has nothing to do with the case ;
his naturalism leads to legislation — that is the chief point
Morality is no misconception, conceived by an ambitious
Moses upon Sinai, but something inherent in the laws of
life and fashioned like a house or a ship or any other cultural
instrument in the normal process of life. The natural
flow of libido, this very middle path, involves a complete
obedience to the fundamental laws of human nature, and
there can positively be no higher moral principle than that
harmony with natural laws whose accord gives the libido
the direction in which life’s optimum lies. The optimum
of life is not to be found upon the line of crude egoism,
since man, whose fundamental make-up discerns an
absolutely indispensable meaning in the happiness he
brings to his neighbour, can never win his life’s optimum
upon the line of egoism. An unbridled craving for indi-
vidual pre-eminence is equally unfitted to achieve this
optimum, since the collective element is so strongly rooted
in man that his yearning for fellowship destroys all
pleasure in naked egoism. The optimum of life can be
gained only by obedience to the tidal laws of the libido,
by which systole alternates with diastole, laws which pro-
vide happiness and the necessary limitations, even setting
the life-tasks of the individual nature, without whose
accomplishment life’s optimum can never be achieved. If
the attainment of this way consisted in a mere surrender
to instinct, which is what is really meant by the bewailer
of “naturalism”, the profoundest philosophical speculation
and the whole history of the human mind would have
no sort of raison d’fitre. Yet, as we study the Upanishad
philosophy, the impression grows on us that the attainment
of the path is not just the simplest of tasks. Our western
air of superiority in the presence of Indian understanding
is a part of our essential barbarism, for which any true
264 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
perception of the quite extraordinary depth of those ideas
and their amazing psychological accuracy is still but a
remote possibility. In fact, we are still so uneducated
that we actually need laws from without, and a task-master
or Father above, to show us what is good and the right
thing to do. It is because we are still so barbarous that
faith in the laws of human nature and the human path
appears as a dangerous and non-ethical naturalism. Why
is this ? Because under the barbarian’s thin skin of culture
the wild-beast lurks in readiness, amply justifying his fear.
But the beast that is caged is not thereby conquered.
There is no morality without freedom . When a barbarian
loosens the animal within him, he is not free, but bound.
Barbarism must first be vanquished, before freedom can be
won. Theoretically this takes place when an individual
perceives and feels the basic root and motive power of his
own morality as an inherent element of. his own nature,
and not as external prohibitions. But how else is man
to attain this realization and insight but through the
conflict of the opposites ?
(d) The Reconciling Symbol in Chinese Philosophy
The idea of a middle path that lies between the
opposites is also to be foupd in China, in the form of Too .
The idea of Tao is usually associated with the name of the
philosopher Lao-Tsze, bom B.C. 604. But this concept
is older than the philosophy of Lao-Tsze, since it is bound
up with certain ideas belonging to the ancient national
religion of the Tao, the celestial “way”. This concept
corresponds with the Vedic Rita. The meanings of Tao
are as follows: (1) way, (2) method, (3) principle, (4)
Nature-force or life-force, (5) the regulated processes of
Nature, (6) the idea of the world, (7) the primal cause of
all phenomena, (8) the right, (9) the good, (10) the eternal
moral law. Some translators even translate Tao as God,
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 265
not without a certain right, since Tao, like Rita, has a
certain admixture of concrete substantiality.
I will first give a few illustrations from the Tao-te-king ,
the classical book of Lao-tsze :
1. “ I do not know whose son it (Tao) is ; it seems to have
existed before God.” (ch. iv)
2. “ A being there is, indefinable, perfected, that existed
before heaven and earth. How still it was how formless, alone,
unchanging, embracing all and inexhaustible ! It would seem
to be the mother of dll things . I know not its name, but I call
it Tao.” (ch. xxv)
3. In order to characterize its essential quality, Lao-tsze
likens it to water : “ The blessing of water is shown in this , it
doeth good to all and seeketh at once the lowliest place, which
all men shun. It hath in it something of Tao.”
The idea of the energic process could not surely be better
expressed.
4. “ Dwelling without desire, one perceiveth its essence ;
cling in g to desire, one seeth only its outer form.” (ch. i)
The kinship with the basic Brahmanic ideas is unmistak-
able — which does not necessarily imply direct contact
Lao-tsze is an entirely original thinker, and the primordial
image underlying both the Rita-Brahman- Atman and Tao
conceptions is as universal as man, appearing in every
age and among all peoples, whether as a primitive energy
concept, as “soul force” or however else it may be
designated.
5. “He who knoweth the eternal is comprehensive ; com-
prehensive, therefore just ; just, therefore a king ; a king, there-
fore cele sta ; celestial, therefore in Tao ; in Tao, therefore
enduring ; without hurt he suffereth the loss of the body.” (ch. xvi)
The knowledge of Tao has therefore the same redeem-
ing and uplifting effect as- the “knowing” of Brahman.
Man becomes one with Tao, with the unending “dur^e
crdatrice ” ; thus to range this latest philosophical concept
appropriately by the side of its older kindred, since Tao is
also the stream of time.
6. 14 Tao is an irrational, hence a wholly inconceivable fact :
Tao is essence, but unseizable, incomprehensible.” (ch. xxi)
266 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
7. Tao also is non-existing : “ From it the existing, all things
under Heaven have their source, but the being of this existing
one arose in its turn from it as the non-existing.” (ch. xl).
“ Tao is hidden, nameless.” (ch. xli)
Clearly Tao is an irrational union of the opposites, there-
fore a symbol which is and is not
8. “ The spirit of the valley is immortal, it is called the deep
fe minin e. The gate-way of the deep feminine is called root of
heaven and earth.”
Tao is the creative essence, as father begetting and as
mother bringing forth. It is the beginning and end of all
creatures.
9. “ He whose actions are in harmony with Tao becometh one
with Tao.”
Therefore the complete one is freed from the opposites
whose intimate connection and alternating appearance he
is aware of. Thus in Chapter ix he says : “ to withdraw
oneself is the celestial way ” .
10. “ Therefore is he (the complete one) inaccessible to
intimacy, inaccessible to estrangement, inaccessible to profit,
inaccessible to injury, inaccessible to honour, inaccessible to
disgrace.” (ch. lvi)
xi. “ Being one with Tao resembles the spiritual condition
of a child.” (ch. x, xxviii, lv)
This is, admittedly, the psychological attitude which is an
essential condition of the inheritance of the Christian
Kingdom of Heaven, and this — in spite of all rational
interpretations — is the central, irrational essence, the basic
image and symbol whence proceeds the redeeming effect
The Christian symbol merely has a more social (civil)
character than the allied Eastern conceptions. These
latter are more directly rooted in eternally existing
dynamistic conceptions, such as the image of magical
power, issuing from things and men, and on a higher level
from gods, or a principle.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 267
12. According to the ideas of the Taoistic religion. Too
is divided into a principle pair of opposites , Yang and Yin.
Yang is warmth, light, masculinity. Yin is cold, darkness,
femininity. Yang is also heaven, Yin earth. From the Yang
force arises Schen , the celestial portion of the human soul ; and
from the Yin force arises Kwei, the earthly part. As a microcosm,
man is also in some degree a reconciler of the pairs of opposites.
Heaven, man, and earth, form the three chief elements of the
world, the San~tsai.
This image is an altogether primordial idea, which we
find elsewhere in similar forms; as for instance in the
West African myth where Obatala and Odudua, the first
parents (heaven and earth) lie -together in a calabash,
until a son, man, arises between them. Hence as a
microcosm, uniting in himself the world-opposites, man
corresponds with the irrational symbol which reconciles
psychological antitheses. This root-image of man clearly
accords with Schiller, when he calls the symbol " living
form”.
The division of the human soul into a Schen or Hwun
soul, and a Kwei or Poh soul, is a great psychological
truth. This Chinese presentation also suggests the
familiar passage in Faust :
“ Two souls, alas ! within my bosom dwell —
One would from the other sever :
The one in full delight of love
Clings with clutching organs to the world :
The other, mightily, from earthly dust
Would mount on high to the ancestral fields.’*
The existence of two mutually contending tendencies, both
striving to drag man into extreme attitudes and entangle
him in the world — whether upon the spiritual or material
side — thereby setting him at variance with hinTself, demands
the existence of a* counter-weight, which is just this
irrational fact, Tao. Hence the believer’s anxious effort
to live in harmony with Tao, lest he fall' into the conflict
of the opposites. Since Tao is an irrational fact, it cannot
268 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
be deliberately achieved ; a fact which Lao-Tsze frequently
emphasizes. Wuwei \ another specifically Chinese concept,
owes its particular significance to this condition. It signi-
fies “ doing nothing ”, but, as Ular pertinently explains, it
should be rendered: “ not-doing, and not doing nothing
The rational ff desire to bring it about ”, which is the great-
ness and the evil of our own epoch, does not lead to Tao.
Thus the aim of the Taoistic ethic sets out to find
deliverance from that tension of the opposites which is an
inherent property of the universe, by a return to Tao.
In this connection we must also remember the “ Sage
of Omi” Nakae Toju 1 , that distinguished Japanese philos-
opher of the seventeenth century. Based upon the teaching
of the Chu-Hi school which had migrated from China, he
established two principles, Ri and Ku Ri is the world-
soul, Ki the world-matter. Ri and Ki are however one
and the same, inasmuch as they are attributes of God,
hence only existing in and through Him. God is their
union. Similarly the soul embraces Ri and Ki. Concern-
ing God, Toju says: “ As the essence of the world, God
enfoldeth the world, but at the same time He is also in
our midst and even in our own bodies.” For him God is
a universal Self, while the individual Self is u heaven in
us ”, an immaterial, divine essence that is called Ryochu
Ryochi is “ God in us ”, and dwells in each individual. It
is the true Self. For Toju distinguishes a true from a
false self. The false self is an acquired personality arising
from perverted beliefs. We might freely describe this false
self as persona, i.e. that general idea of our nature which
we have built up from experiencing our effect upon the
world around and its effect upon us.
The persona expresses the personality as it appears
to oneself and one’s world; but not what one is, to use
1 Cf. Tetsujiro Inouye, Japansss Philosophy (In Kultur der Gegen-
wart 1913)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 269
the words of Schopenhauer. What one is, is one’s
individual Self,? -according to Toju, one’s true Self or
Ryochi. Ryochi is also called “alone being”, or “alone
knowing ”, clearly because it is a condition related to the
essence of the Self, a state existing beyond all persona]
judgments that are determined by outer experience. Toju
conceives Ryochi as the summum bonum, as ‘bliss’
(Brahman is Ananda — bliss). Ryochi is the light which
pervades the world; a further parallel with Brahman,
according to Inouye. Ryochi is human love, immortal,
all-knowing good. Evil comes from willing (Schopen-
hauer!). It is the self-regulating function, the mediator
and reconciler of the pairs of opposites, Ri and Ki: it
is in fullest harmony with the Indian idea of the “ancient
Wise One who dwelleth in' thy heart”. Or as Wang-
Yang-Ming, the Chinese father of the Japanese philosophy,
says: “In every heart there dwelleth a Sejin (Sage).
Only man will not steadfastly believe it — therefore hath
the whole remained buried.”
From the point we have now reached, the primordial
image which contributed to the solution of the problem
in Wagner’s Parsifal is no longer hard to understand;
the suffering proceeds from the tension of the opposites
represented by the Grail and the power of Klingsor, the
latter consisting in the possession of the holy spear.
Beneath the spell of Klingsor is Kundry, the instinctive,
nature-cleaving life-force which Amfortas lacks. Parsifal
delivers the libido from the state of restless compulsion,
because in the first place he does not succumb to her
power, but in the second because he himself is detached
from the Grail. Amfortas is with the Grail ; whereby he
suffers, because he lacks the other. Parsifal possesses
naught of either; he is ‘ nirdvandva ’, free from the
opposites; hence he is also the deliverer, the bestower
of healing and renewed life-force, the reconciler of the
2?0
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
opposites, i.e. the light, celestial, feminine, of the Grail, and
the dark, earthly, masculine, of the spea4 The death of
Kundry may be freely interpreted as the release of the
libido from the nature-clinging, undomesticated form (the
“form of the bull”: compare above), which falls from
her as a lifeless mould, while energy bursts forth as newly-
streaming life in the glowing of the Grail.
Through his partly involuntary abstention from the
opposites, Parsifal causes the damming up by which the
new ‘fall’, i.e. the new manifestation of energy is made
possible. One might easily be misled by the unmistakably
sexual language into a one-sided interpretation, by which
the union of the spear and the vessel of the Grail would
merely signify a liberation of sexuality. That it is not
merely a question of sexuality, the fate of Amfortas makes
clear, since it was precisely his rechute to a nature-bound,
brutish attitude, which was the cause of his suffering and
brought about the loss of his power. His seduction by
Kundry has the value of a symbolic act, which would
signify that it is not sexuality that deals such wounds
so much as an attitude of nature-clinging compulsion, an
irresolute yielding to biological temptation. This attitude
is equivalent to the supremacy of the animal part of our
psyche.
The sacrificial wound that is destined for the beast
strikes the man who is overcome by the beast (for the
sake of man’s further development). The fundamental
problem, as I have already pointed out in my book
Psychology of the Unconscious, is not sexuality per se, but
the domestication of the libido, which concerns sexuality
only in so far as it is one of the most important and
most dangerous forms of libido expression.
If, in the case of Amfortas and the union of spear and
Grail, only the sexual problem is discerned, we reach an
insoluble contradiction, since the thing that harms is
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
271
also the remedy that heals. But only when we see the
opposites as reconciled upon a higher plane is such a
paradox either true or permissible ; a realization, namely,
that it is not a question of sexuality, either in this form
or that, but purely a question of the attitude by which
every activity, including the sexual, is regulated.
Once again I must stress my view that the practical
problem of analytical psychology lies deeper than sexuality
and its repression. Such a view-point is doubtless valuable
in explaining that infantile and therefore morbid part of
the soul, but, as a principle of interpretation for the
totality of the human soul, it is inadequate.
What stands behind sexuality or the instinct to power
is the attitude to sexuality and power . In so far as attitude
is not merely an intuitive phenomenon (ie. unconscious
and spontaneous) but also a conscious function, it is, in
the main, one's view of life . Our views in regard to all
problematical things are enormously influenced, some-
times consciously but more often unconsciously, by certain
collective ideas which mould our mental atmosphere.
These collective ideas are intimately bound up with the view
of life or world-philosophy of the past hundred or thousand
years. Whether or no we are conscious of this dependence
has nothing to do with the case, since we are influenced
by these ideas through the very atmosphere we breathe.
Such collective ideas have always a religious character,
and a philosophical idea acquires a religious character
only when it expresses a primordial image, i.e. a collective
root-image. The religious character of these ideas pro-
ceeds from the fact that they express the realities of the
collective unconscious ; hence they also have the power
of releasing the latent energies of the unconscious. The
great problems of life — sexuality, of course among others
— are always related to the primordial images of the
collective unconscious. These images are really balancing
*n
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
or compensating factors which correspond with the prob-
lems life presents in actuality.
This is not to be marvelled at, since these images are
deposits, representing the accumulated experience of
thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and
existence. Every great experience in life, every profound
conflict, evokes the treasured wealth of these images and
brings them to inner perception; as such, they become
accessible to consciousness only in the presence of that
degree of self-awareness and power of understanding
which enables a man also to think what he experiences
instead of just living it blindly. In the latter case he
actually lives the myth and the symbol without know-
ing it
4. The Relativity of the Symbol
(a) The Service of Woman and the Service of the Soul
The Service of God is the Christian principle which
reconciles the opposites ; with Buddhism it is service of the
Self (self-development); while the principle of solution
suggested by Goethe and Spitteler is service of the soul^
symbolized in the service of woman.
Contained herein is the principle of modem individual-
ism on the one hand, and on the other a primitive poly-
daemonism which assigns, not merely to every race but to
every tribe, every family, even to every individual, its own
religious principle.
The medieval material in Faust possesses its quite
extraordinary importance, because it is actually a medieval
element which stands at the cradle of modern individualism.
Individualism seems to have begun with the service of
woman, thereby effecting a most important reinforcement
of man's soul as a psychological factor; since service of
woman psaeans service of the soul This is nowhere more
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 273
beautifully and perfectly expressed than in Dante’s Divina
Commcdia.
Dante is the spiritual knight of his lady ; he undertakes
the adventure of the upper and nether worlds for her sake.
And in this heroic labour her image is exalted into that
heavenly, mystical figure of the Mother of God — a figure
which in its complete detachment from the object has
become a personification of a purely psychological entity,
ie. that unconscious content whose personification I have
termed the anima or soul. Canto xxxiii of the Paradiso
contains this crowning of Dante’s spiritual development
in the prayer of St Bernard :
“ Oh Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
More lovely, more sublime than any creature 1
Of the Lord of the eternal throne the chosen goal.
Thou hast so ennobled the nature of man
That He who created the highest good
Hath chosen in thee to become creature.”
Concerning Dante’s development we have verses 22 ff.
** He who appeared from the deepest gorge
Of the Universe, who with ghostly art and being.
From realm to realm probing and inquiring, passed ;
He entreateth with thee for thy strength.
That he may lift up his eyes
And consecrate his vision to the highest grace.”
Verses 31 ff.
“ May every cloud of his mortality
Be banished through thy prayer I Unfolded
Now for him the highest bliss and joy eternal.”
Verses 37 ft
“ Let him withstand the earthly motions.
Behold, Beatrice ! so many glorious ones
Intercede for me, with folded hands.”
The fact that Dante here speaks through the mouth
of St Bernard points to the transformation and exaltation
of his own being. The same successive transformation is
also seen in Faust, who ascends from Margaret to Helen,
from Helen to the Mother of God ; his nature is altered
K
274
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
through repeated figurative deaths until he finally attains
the highest goal as Doctor Marianus. As such Faust
utters his prayer to the Virgin Mother :
“ Supreme and sovereign Mistress of the world I
In the azure outstretched dome of Heaven
Let me behold thy secret.
The strong and tender motions of man’s breast
That with holy passion of love ascend to Thee
Graciously approve.
Unconquerable our courage bums.
Under Thy celestial guidance
Suddenly our passions cool
In Thine assuaging calm.
Oh Virgin, in highest sense most pure.
Oh Mother, worthy of all worship.
Our chosen Queen, equal with the Gods. 1 '
And :
“ Gaze upon her saving glance,
All ye frail and penitent,
With grace accept your holy Fate,
For when ye thank, ye prosper.
Better seemeth every wish
To her service given.
Virgin Mother, Sovereign Queen,
Goddess, ever gracious 1 ”
In this connection, the significant symbol-attributes of the
Virgin in the Litany of Loretto must also be mentioned :
Mater amabilis
Mater admirabilis
Mater boni consilii
Speculum justitiae
Sedes sapientiae
Causa nostrae laetitiae
Vas spirituale
Vas honorabile
Vas insigne devotionis
Rosa mystica
Tunis Davidica
Tunis ebumea
Domus aurea
Foederis area
Janua coeli
Stella matutina
Thou beloved Mother
Thou wonderful Mother
Thou Mother of good counsel
Thou Minor of justice
Thou Seat of wisdom
Thou Source of our joy
Thou spiritual Vessel
Thou venerable Vessel
Thou surpassing Vessel of devotion
Thou mystical Rose
Thou Tower of David
Thou Tower of ivory
Thou House of gold
Thou Ark of the Covenant
Thou Gate of Heaven
Thou Star of the morning
(Missale Romanwn)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
275
These attributes show the functional importance of the
image of the Virgin Mother ; they demonstrate how the soul-
image affects the conscious attitude, namely as vessel of
devotion, as solid form, as source of wisdom and renewed
life.
In a most concise and comprehensive form we find
this characteristic transition from the service of woman
to the service of the soul in an Early Christian writing :
The Shepherd of Hermas, who wrote about A.D. 140. This
book, written in Greek, consists of a number of visions
and revelations, which symbolically represent the con-
solidation of the new faith. The book, long regarded as
canonical, was nevertheless rejected by the Muratorian
Canon. It begins as follows ;
" The man who reared me, sold me to a certain Rhoda in
Rome. After many years, I met with her again and began to love
her like a sister. On a day a little while after, I saw her bathing
in the Tiber, and gave her my hand and helped her out of the
river. As I beheld her beauty, I had this thought in my heart :
“ Happy would I be, had I a wife of such beauty and such dis-
tinction.” That was my sole wish and nothing more (irepop
This experience was the starting-point for the visionary
episode that followed. Hermas had apparently served
Rhoda as slave ; then, as often happened, he obtained his
freedom, and subsequently encountered her again, when,
probably as much from gratitude as from pleasure, a
feeling of love was stirred in his heart ; which, however,
so far as he was aware, had merely the character of
brotherly love. Hermas was a Christian, and moreover,
as the text subsequently reveals, he was at that time
already the father of a family ; circumstances which render
the repression of the erotic element easily understandable.
Yet the peculiar situation, doubtless provocative of
many problems, was all the more favourable for bringing
the erotic wish to consciousness. It is, in fact, quite
clearly expressed in the thought that he would have
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
276
liked Rhoda for a wife, although it is definitely confined
to this unqualified appreciation as Hermas is at pains to
emphasize, since naturally the implied and more direct
issue at once incurred a moral prohibition. It is
abundantly clear from what follows that this repressed
libido evoked a powerful transformation in his unconscious,
for it imbued the soul image with life, thus bringing it to
spontaneous efficacy.
Let us now follow the text further :
_ “ After a certain time, as I journeyed unto Cumae, praising
God’s creation in its immensity, beauty, and power, in my going
I grew heavy with sleep. And a spirit caught me up, and led
me away through a pathless region where a man may not go.
For it was a place full of crevices and tom by water-courses.
I made my passage over the river and came upon even ground,
where I threw myself upon my knees, and prayed to God, con-
fessing my sins. While I thus prayed, the heavens opened and 1
beheld that lady for whom I yearned, who greeted me from
heaven and said : ‘ Hail to thee. Hennas 1 ’ While my eyes
dwelt upon her, I spake and said : ‘ Mistress, what doest thou
there ? ’ And she answered : * I was taken up, in order to charge
thee with thy sins before the Lord.’ I said unto her : ' Dost thou
now accuse me ? ’ 4 No ’, said she, ‘ yet hearken now unto the
words which I shall speak unto thee. For God, who dwelleth in
heaven, and hath created the existing out of the non-existing, and
hath magnified it and brought it to increase for the sake of His
Holy Church, is wroth with thee, because thou hast sinned against
me.’ I answered and spake unto her : 4 How have I sinned
against thee ? When and where spake I ever an evil word unto
thee ? Have I not looked upon thee as a goddess ? Have I
not ever treated thee like a sister ? Wherefore, O lady, dost
thou falsely charge me with such evil and unclean things ? ’
She smiled and said unto me : 4 The desire of sin arose in thy
heart. Or is it not ipdeed a sin in thine eyes for a just man to
cherish a sinful desire in his heart ? Verily is it a sin’, said
she, * and a great one. For the just man striveth after what is
just.’”
Solitary wanderings are, as we know, conducive to
day-dreaming and reverie. Probably Hermas, on his way
to Cumae was pondering on his mistress; while thus
engaged, the repressed erotic phantasy gradually withdrew
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
277
his libido into the unconscious. Sleep overcame him, as
a result of this lowering of the intensity of consciousness,
and he fell into a somnambulent or ecstatic state, which
is merely a phantasy of great intensity that altogether
captivates the conscious. It is significant that what
comes to him is no erotic phantasy, but he is transported
as it were to another land, represented in phantasy as the
crossing of a river and a journey through a pathless
country. The unconscious appears to him as an opposite
or over-world, in which events take place and men move
about as in reality.
His mispress appears before him, not in an erotic
phantasy, but in “divine” form, seeming to him like a
goddess in the heavens. This fact indicates that the
repressed erotic impression in the unconscious has activ-
ated the latent primordial image of the goddess, which is
in fact the archetypal soul-image. The erotic impression
has evidently become united in the collective unconscious
with those archaic residues which from primordial timp
have held the imprints of vivid impressions of woman’s
nature ; woman as mother, and woman as desirable maid.
Such impressions have immense power, since they release
forces, both in the child and the man, which, in their
irresistible and absolutely compelling nature, merit the
attribute divine. The recognition of these forces as
daemonic powers can scarcely be due to moral repression,
but rather to a self-regulation of the psychic organism
which seeks by this orientation to protect itself from loss
of equilibrium. For if, against the wholly overwhelming
power of passion, which casts a man unconditionally in
the path of another, the psyche succeeds in erecting a
counterposition, whereby at the summit of passion it
severs the idol from the utterly desired object and forces
the man to his knees before the divine image, it has thereby
delivered him from the curse of the object’s spell He is
278 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
restored again to himself ; he is even forced upon himself ;
thus coming once more into his own way between gods
and men, and subject to his own laws. The awful dread
which haunts the primitive, that dread of every impressive
phenomenon which he at once senses as magic, as though
things were charged with magical power, preserves him
in a practical way against that most dreaded possibility,
the loss of the soul, with its inevitable sequel of disease
or death.
The loss of a soul corresponds with the tearing loose
of an essential part of one’s nature ; it is the disappearance
and emancipation of a complex, which therewith becomes a
tyrannical usurper of consciousness, oppressing the whole
man ; it throws him out of his course, and constrains him
to actions whose blind one-sidedness has self-destruction
as its inevitable issue. The primitives are notoriously
subject to such phenomena as running amok, Berserker
rage, possessions, and the like. An intuitive knowledge
of the daemonic character of this power supplies an
effective guard, for such an insight at once deprives the
object of its strongest spell, shifting its source to the world
of daemons, to the unconscious, whence the force of
passion actually springs. Exorcising rites, whose aim is
to bring back the soul and release the enchantment also
effects this backflow of libido into the unconscious.
This mechanism is clearly effective in the case of
Hermas. The transformation of Rhoda into the divine
mistress deprives the actual object of her provocative and
destructive power, and brings Hermas under the law of
his own soul and its collective determinants.
By virtue of his ability, he doubtless took an important
share in the spiritual movements of his age. At that very
time his brother Pius occupied the episcopal see at Rome.
Hermas, therefore, was called to .collaborate in the great
tasks of his time, in a higher degree than he, as a former
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
279
slave, may have consciously realized. No able mind of
that time could for long have withstood the contemporary
task of spreading Christianity, unless the limitations and
conditions of race naturally assigned to him another
function in the great process of spiritual transformation.
Just as external conditions of life constrain a man
to social functions, the soul also contains collective
determinants which constrain him to the socializing of
opinions and convictions. Through the conversion of a
possible social trespass and a probable passional self-
injury to the service of the soul, Hermas is guided to
the accomplishment of a social task of a spiritual
nature, which for that time was, assuredly, of no small
importance.
In order to fit him for this task, it is clearly necessary
that his soul shall destroy the last possibility of an erotic
bondage to the object For this last possibility means
dishonesty towards himself. That he may consciously
forswear the erotic desire, Hermas merely demonstrates
that it would be more agreeable to him if the erotic desire
did not exist, but he gives no kind of evidence that he
actually has no erotic intentions and phantasies. There-
fore his sovereign lady, the soul, mercilessly reveals to him
the existence of his sin, thus releasing him from his secret
bondage to the object As a “vessel of devotion” she
therewith receives that passion which was on the point of
being fruitlessly lavished upon the object. The last
vestige of this passion had to be eradicated in order that
the contemporary task might be accomplished ; this lay
in the crying need of mankind for a severance from
sensual bondage, i.e. the state of primitive “ participation
mystique”. To the man of that age this subjection
had become intolerable. Clearly a differentiation of
the spiritual function had to take place, in order to
re-establish psychic equilibrium.. Every one of those
280 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
philosophical attempts to restore psychic poise o i
equanimity, which largely emanated from the Stoic
teaching, foundered upon their rationalism. Reason can
provide this desired equilibrium only to the man whose
reason is already an organ of balance. But for how many
individuals and at what period of history has this actually
been the case? As a general rule, a man must also
acquire the opposite of his own condition before he finds
himself, willy-nilly, in the middle way. For the sake of
mere reason he can never forgo the appealing sensuous-
ness of the immediate situation. Against the power and
temptation of the temporal, therefore, he must set the
joy of the eternal, and against the passion of the sensual,
the ecstasy of the spiritual. As real as the one is for him,
must the other be compellingly effective.
Through insight into the actual existence of his erotic
desire it is possible for Hermas to reach a realization of
this metaphysical reality; which means that the soul-
image also acquires that sensual libido which has hitherto
adhered to the concrete object. Henceforth this libido
bestows upon the image, the idol, that reality which from
all time the sense object has exclusively claimed as its
own. Thus the soul is able to speak with effect, and
successfully enforce her claims.
After the talk with Rhoda recorded above, her image
vanishes, and the heavens close. In her stead there now
appears an “ old woman in shining garments ”, who informs
Hermas that his erotic desire is a sinful and foolish under-
taking against a venerable spirit, but that God is wroth
with him, not so much on that account but because he,
Hermas, tolerates the sins of his family. In this adroit
way the libido is entirely withdrawn from the erotic wish
and is directed in its next swing into the social task. An
especial refinement lies in the fact that the soul has dis-
carded the image of Rhoda and has taken on the aspect
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 281
of an old woman, thus allowing the erotic element to
recede as far as possible into the background.
It is later revealed to Hermas that this old woman is
the Church , whereby the concrete and personal is dissolved
into an abstraction and the ideal gains an actuality and a
reality which it had never before possessed. Thereupon
the old woman reads to him from a mysterious book
directed in general against the heathen and apostates, but
whose exact meaning he is unable to seize. Subsequently
we learn that the book contains a mission. Thus the
sovereign lady presents him with his task, which as her
knight he needs must accomplish.
The trial of virtue is also not lacking. For, not long
after, Hermas has a vision, in which the old lady appears,
promising to return about the fifth hour, in order to explain
the revelation. Whereupon Hermas betook himself into
the country to the appointed place, where he found a
couch of ivory, set with a pillow and a cover of fine linen.
“As I beheld these things lying there”, writes Hennas,
“ I was sore amazed, and a quaking fell upon me and my hair
stood on end, and a dreadful fear befell me, because I was alone
in that place. But when I came once more to myself, I remem-
bered the glory of God and took new courage ; I knelt down and
again confessed my sins unto God, as I had done before. Then
she drew near with six young men, the which also I had seen
before, and stood beside me and listened while I prayed and
confessed my sins unto God. And she touched me and said:
1 Hermas, have done with all thy prayers and the reciting of thy
sins. Pray also for righteousness, whereby thou mayest bear
some of it with thee to thy house.' And she raised me up by the
hand and led me to the couch, and said unto the young men :
0 Go and build l ' And when the youths were gone and we were
alone, she said unto me : * Sit thee here l ’ I said unto her :
* Mistress, let the aged first be seated.’ She said : * Do as I said
unto thee and be thou seated.' But, when I made as though to
seat myself upon her right hand, she motioned me with a gesture
of the hand to be seated upon her left.
“As I wondered thereat, and was troubled, that I might
not sit upon the right side, she said unto me : * Why art thou
• grieved. Hennas ? The seat upon the right is for those who
K*
28* THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
are already well-pleasing to God and have suffered for the Name.
But to thee there lacketh much before thou canst sit with them.
Yet remain as heretofore in thy simplicity, and thou shalt surely
sit with them, and thus shall it be for all who shall have accom-
plished the work which those wrought, and endured what they
suffered.* '*
The erotic misunderstanding of the situation was indeed
very possible for Hermas. The rendez-vous has at once
the feeling of a trysting-place in “ a beautiful and
sequestered spot” (as he puts it). The rich couch waiting
there is a fatal reminder of Eros, and makes the fear
which overcomes Hermas at this spectacle seem very
intelligible. Clearly he must vigorously combat the erotic
association, lest he fall into a profane mood. He certainly
does not appear to have recognized the temptation, unless
perhaps this recognition is taken as self-evident in the
description of his dread, an honesty which was far more
possible to a man of that time than to a man of to-day.
For in that age man was more nearly in touch with his
whole nature than are we — hence he was all the more
likely to have a direct perception of his natural reactions
and to appreciate them correctly. In this case his con-
fession of sin may have aroused forthwith the perception
of a profane feeling. In any case the question arising at
this juncture, as to whether he shall sit on the right hand
or the left, leads to a moral reprimand at the hands of his
mistress.
In spite of the fact that signs coming from the left
were regarded as favourable in the Roman auguries, the
left side, both with the Greeks and the Romans was on
the whole inauspicious; allusion to this is found in the
double meaning of the word c sinister \ But the question
here raised of right and left, as an immediately ensuing
passage shows, has nothing to do with popular super-
stitions; it is clearly of Biblical origin, referring to
Math* % xxv, 33: “He shall set the sheep on His right
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 283
hand, but the goats on the left”. Sheep by virtue of
their harmless and gentle nature, are an allegory for the
good, while the unruly and salacious character of goats
provides a suitable image of evil. His mistress, therefore,
by assigning to him the seat on the left, figuratively
reveals to him her understanding of his psychology.
When Hermas has taken his seat upon the left, rather
sadly, as he records, his soul-mistress further reveals to
him a visionary scene, which unrolls itself before his eyes :
he beholds how the youths, assisted by ten thousand other
men, build a mighty tower whose stones fit one into the
other without joints. This jointless tower (hence by its
very nature of indestructible solidity) symbolizes the
Church, so Hermas understands. The mistress is the
Churchy and so is the tower . In the attributes of the
Lorettian Litany we have already seen how the Virgin
is characterized as Turris Davidica and Turris ebumea
(tower of ivory). It would seem as though an identical
or similar association were concerned here. The tower
undoubtedly has the meaning of something steadfast
and secure suggesting the reference in the Psalms , lvi, 4 :
“ For Thou hast been a shelter for me
And a strong tower from the enemy
A certain resemblance to the Tower of Babel can, I think,
be excluded from our interpretation, on the strength of
strong internal counter-evidence. N one the less it may have
chimed in, since Hermas, in company with every other
thinking mind of that epoch, must have • suffered much
from the depressing spectacle of the ceaseless schisms
and heretical strifes of the Early Church. Such an
impression may also have provided the essential motive
for the writing of this book ; an inference to which we are
all the more entitled by the fact that the revealed book is
directed against heathens and apostates. That same
confusion of tongues which frustrated the Tower of Babel
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
284
almost completely dominated the Christian Church in the
first century, demanding desperate exertions on the part
of the faithful to overcome the confusion.
Since Christendom at that time was far from being
one flock under one shepherd, it was only natural that
Hermas longed to find the mighty “shepherd”, the
Potmen , as well as that firm and stable form which should
unite in one inviolable whole the elements gathered from
all the four winds, the mountains and the seas.
Chthonic craving, sensuality in all its manifold forms,*
with its eager hold upon the enticements of the world
and its incessant dissipation of psychic energy in the
world’s prodigal variety, is a crowning hindrance to the
development of a coherent and purposive attitude. Hence
the elimination of this obstacle must have been the most
important task of that time. It is therefore not sur-
prising that in the Potmen of Hermas, it is the vanquish-
ing of this very obstacle that is unfolded before our eyes.
We have already seen how the original erotic stimulus
and the energy thereby released became translated into
the personification of the unconscious complex, t.e the
figure of Ecclesia as the old woman, who in her visionary
appearances demonstrates the spontaneity of the under-
lying complex. We learn, moreover, at this point that
the old woman, the Church, becomes the Tower, as it were,
since the Tower is also the Church. This transition is un-
expected, for the connection between the Tower and the old
woman is not immediately evident. The attributes of the
Virgin in the Lorettian Litany, however, will help us upon
the right track, because there we find, as already mentioned,
the attribute “ tower ” associated with the Virgin Mother.
' This attribute has its source in The Song of Songs, IV, 4 :
“ Sicut turris David collum tuum, quae sedificata est cum pro-
pugnaculis.” (“ Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for
an armoury ”).
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 285
VII, 4 : “ Collum tuum sicut turns ebumea.” (“ Thy neck is
as a tower of ivory'*). Similarly VIII, 10: “ Ego murns, et
ubera mea sicut turris.*’ (“ I am a wall, and my breasts like
towers.*’)
The Song of Songs , as is well known, was originally
a secular love-poem, perhaps a wedding-song which was
actually denied canonical recognition by Jewish scholars
till quite recently. Mystical interpretation, however, always
loved to conceive the bride as Israel and the bridegroom
as Jehovah, and, indeed, from a right instinct ; since the
aim of this conception is a translation of the erotic
emotion into a national relationship with God. From
the same motives Christianity also possessed itself of
The Song of Songs, in order to conceive the bridegroom
as Christ and the bride as the Church. To the psychology
of the Middle Ages this analogy had an extraordinary
appeal, and it inspired the perfectly frank Christian
erotism of medieval mysticism, of which Mechtild von
Magdeburg is one of the most shining examples. In
this spirit was the Lorettian Litany conceived. It de-
rives certain attributes of the Virgin directly from The
Song of Songs . We have already shown this in connec-
tion with the tower symbol.
The rose is already employed by the Greek fathers
as an attribute of Mary; so too is the lily; these are
also related to The Song of Songs, 2, 1 :
“ Ego flos campi et lilium convaUium.
Sicut lilium inter spinas, sic arnica mea inter Alias.”
“ I am the rose of Sharon,
And the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns.
So is my love among the daughters.”
An image much used in the medieval hymns to
Mary is the “enclosed garden” from The Song of Songs ,
4, 12: “ Hortus conclusus, soror mea sponsa” (“A
garden Enclosed is my sister, my spouse”) and the
286
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
“ sealed fountain ( Song of Songs, 4, 12 : “ fons signatus ”
“ A spring shut up, a fountain sealed ”).
The unmistakably erotic nature of this simile in The
Song of Songs is explicitly accepted as such by the
Fathers. Thus, for example, St Ambrosius interprets
the hortus conclusus as Virginity (De Instit. Virg., c. 10).
In the same way St Ambrosius compares (Comm, in Apoc ,,
c. 6) Mary with Moses* basket of rushes :
“ per fiscellam scirpeam, beata virgo designata est. Mater
ergo fiscellam scirpeam, in qua Moses ponebatur ; praeparavit,
quia sapientia dei, quae est filius dei, beatam Mariam Virginem
elegit, in cuius utero hominem, cui per unitatem personae con-
j unger etur, formavit.” (“ Like a basket of rushes is the blessed
Virgin designated. Therefore the mother prepared the basket
in which Moses was laid ; because the wisdom of God, which is
the Son of God, chose the blessed Virgin Mary, in whose womb
he fashioned himself man, and with whom by unity of person he
became united.")
St Augustine employs the simile (frequently used
later) of the thalamus (bridal chamber) for Mary, again
with an express implication of the anatomical meaning:
“ elegit sibi thalamum castum, ubi conjungeretur sponsus
sponsae ” (Serm., 192) (“He chose for himself the chaste
bridal chamber, where as spouse he could be joined to
spouse ”), and “ processit de thalamo suo, id est, de utero
virginali” (Serm., 124) (“He issued forth out of the
bridal chamber, i.e. from the virginal womb ”).
The interpretation of vas as uterus may accordingly be
taken as certain, when parallel with the just quoted passage
from St Augustine, we have St Ambrosius saying : “ non
de terra, sed de coelo vas sibi hoc, per quod descenderet,
elegit, et sacravit templum pudoris ” (De Instit Virg., c. 5)
(“ Not of earth but of Heaven did He choose this vessel for
Himself, through which He should descend and sanctify
the temple of shame"). Similarly with the Greek Fathers
the designation o-icevos (vessel) is not infrequent. Here,
too, the derivation from the erotic allegory of The Song of
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 287
Songs is not improbable, for, although the designation vas
does not appear in the Vulgate text, we come upon the
image of the goblet and of drinking: “Umbilicus tuus
crater tomatilis nunquam indigens poculis. Venter tuus
sicut acervus tritici, vallatus liliis.”
Thy navel is like a round goblet.
Wherein no mingled wine is wanting :
Thy belly is like an heap of wheat
Set about with lilies.”
Song of Songs, VII, 2)
Parallel with the meaning of the first sentence, we find
Mary compared with the cruse of oil of the widow of
Sarepta in the Meisterlieder of the Colmar manuscript
(Bartsch, Stuttgart 1862).
“ Sarepta in Sydonien lant dar Helyas wart gesant zuo einer
witwen diu in solte neren, der glicht intn lip wol wirdeclich,
d6 den propheten sant in mich got und uns wolt die tiurunge
verkdren.” (“ Sarepta in the Sidonian land, whither Elias was
sent to a widow who should nourish him ; my body is meetly
compared with hers, for God sent the prophet unto me, to change
lor us our time of famine.”)
Parallel with the second sentence St Ambrosius says :
“ In quo Virginis utero simul acervus tritici et lilii flores
gratia germinabat : quoniam et granum tritici generabat et
lilium, etc.” (“ In the womb of the Virgin grace increased
like a heap of wheat and the flowers of the lily, just as it
also generated the grain of wheat and the lily”). Very
remote passages are enlisted by Catholic authorities
(Salzer, Sinnbilder und Betnamen Maidens') in the quest of
this vessel-symbolism, as for instance Song of Songs, 1, 1 :
“ Osculetur me osculo oris sui : quia meliora sunt ubera tua
Yino.”
“ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth :
For thy love is better than wine.” (love : lit. breasts)
and even from the book of Exodus XVI, 33 : “And Moses
said unto Aaron: ‘Take a pot, and put an omer full of
288
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept
for your generations.’ ”
These artificial associations tell against, rather than
for, the Biblical origin of the vessel-symbolism. In favour
of the possibility of an extra-Biblical origin, we have the
undeniable fact that the medieval hymn to Mary boldly
borrows its similes from everywhere, and practically every-
thing that is in any way precious is associated with the
Virgin. The fact that the vessel-symbol is certainly very
ancient 1 — it springs from the period of the third and
fourth centuries — does not argue against its worldly origin,
since even the Fathers inclined towards extra-Biblical,
“ heathenish ” similes; as for instance Tertullian 8 , St
Augustine 3 , and others, who compared the Virgin with
the earth still undefiled and the unploughed field, certainly
not without an obvious side glance towards Kore 4 of the
mysteries. Such comparisons were moulded upon pagan
models just as Cumont has shown in the early medieval
ecclesiastical book - illustration in the case of Elijah’s
ascension into Heaven, which holds closely to an antique
Mithraic prototype. In usages innumerable, of which not
1 The magic cauldron of the Celtic mythology is further evidence
of the vigorous pagan root that contributed to the vessel symbolism.
Dagda, one of the benevolent gods of ancient Ireland, has such a
cauldron, which fills everybody with food according to his needs or
merits. The Celtic god Bran also possesses the cauldron of renovation.
It has even been suggested that the name Brons, one of the figures
of the Grail legend, is really a development of this Bran. Alfred Nutt
considers that Bran, lord of the cauldron, and Brons, are steps in the
transformation of the Celtic Peredur Saga into the quest of the Holy
Grail. It would seem, therefore, that the Grail motives already existed
in Celtic mythology. I am indebted to Dr Maurice NicoU, of London,
for the above allusions.
1 “Ilia terra virgo nondum pluviis rigata nec imbribus foecun-
data, &c.” (“ This virgin land has not been watered by rain nor
fertilized by showers ”).
8 " Veritas de terra orta est, quia Christus de Virgine natus est.”
(“ Truth is bom of the earth, because Christ was bom of the Virgin ”.)
4 Kore — "Virgin-goddess, identical with Sophia of the Gnosis. Cf.
W. Bousset, Haupiprobhme for Gnosis. 1907.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 289
the least is the translation of Christ’s birth to the 4 natalis
solis invicti ’ (birthday of the invincible sun), the Church
followed the pagan model. Thus St Hieronymus compares
the Virgin with the sun as the mother of light
These designations of an extra-Biblical nature can
have had their source only in the pagan conceptions still
current at that time. It is therefore only just, when con-
sidering the vessel-symbol, to call to mind the well-known
and widely spread Gnostic vessel-symbolism of that time.
A great number of contemporary gems have been preserved
which bear the symbol of a vessel, or cruse, with remark-
able winged bands, at once recalling the uterus with the
ligamenta lata. This vessel, according to Matter, is
termed the “Vase of Sin”, in contrast with the hymn to
Mary, in which the Virgin is extolled as ‘ vas virtutum ’.
King ( The Gnostics and their Remains , p. 1 1 1) rejects such
an idea as arbitrary, and agrees with Kohler’s view that
the cameo-image (principally Egyptian) refers to the
pitcher of the Persian wheel, which pumps the Nile water
over the fields, and that this also explains the peculiar
bands which clearly served for fastening the pitcher to
the wheel.
The fertilizing activity of the pitcher was, as King
notes, expressed in antique phraseology as the “impregna-
tion of Isis by the seed of Osiris ” One frequently finds
upon the vessel a winnowing-basket, probably with reference
to the “ mystica vannus Jacchi ” (“ the mystical winnowing
’basket of Iakchos ”), or \Ikvov , the figurative birth-place
of the grain of wheat and symbol of the god of fertility
(Cf. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious , p. 374). There
used to be a Greek marriage-ceremony in which a winnow-
ing-basket filled with fruit was laid upon the head of the
bride, a manifest fertility charm.
This conception approaches the ancient Egyptian idea
that everything originated from the primeval water, Nu
290
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
or Nut, which is identified either with the Nile or the
Ocean. Nu is written with three pots , three water marks,
and the sign of heaven. In a hymn to Ptah-Tenen we
find : “ Maker of grain, which cometh forth from Him in
His name Nu the Aged, who maketh the water appear on
the mountains, to give life unto man and woman” 1 Sir
Wallis Budge drew my attention to the fact that the
uterus symbolism also exists to-day in the Southern
Egyptian hinterland in the form of rain and fertility charms.
Occasionally it still happens that the natives in the bush
kill a woman and take out her uterus, in order to make
use of this organ in magical rites. (Cf. P. Amaury Talbot,
"In the Shadow of the Bush ”, pp. 67, 74 ff.)
When one bears in mind how powerfully the Fathers
of the Church were influenced by Gnostic ideas, in spite
of the strongest resistance to such heresies, it is not
unthinkable that in this very symbolism of the vessel a
pagan relic which proved adaptable to Christianity should
have crept in; all the more easily, in fact, since the
Virgin worship is itself a vestige of paganism, by which
the Christian Church secured the entail of the Magna
Mater, Isis, and others. The image of the Vas sapientice
also recalls a Gnostic prototype, viz. Sophia, an immensely
significant symbol for the Gnosis.
I have lingered rather longer upon the vessel symbolism
than my readers might have expected. I have done this,
however, for a definite reason, because, to my mind, this
legend of the Grail, so essentially characteristic of the
early Middle Ages, contains considerable psychological
enlightenment in its relation to the service of woman.
The central religious idea of this infinitely varied
legendary material is the holy vessel, which, as everyone
must see, is a thoroughly non-Christian image, whose origin
is to be sought in other than canonical sources. On the
1 Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians , i, 51 1 (1904)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
291
strength of the foregoing arguments, I believe it to be a
genuine piece of the Gnosis, which either survived the
rooting out of heresies by means of secret tradition, or
owed its resurrection to an unconscious reaction against
the dominion of official Christianity. The survival, or
unconscious revivification, of the vessel-symbol indicates a
strengthening of the feminine principle in the masculine
psychology of that time. This symbolization by means of
a mysterious image must be interpreted as a spiritualizing
of the erotic motive evoked by the service of woman.
But spiritual transformation always means the holding back
of a sum of libido, which would otherwise be immediately
squandered in sexuality. Experience shows tha t, when
a sum of libido is thus retained, one part of it flows into
the spiritualized expression, while the remainder sinks into
the unconscious, where it effects a certain activation of
corresponding images of which this vessel symbolism is
the expression. The symbol lives through the holding
back of certain libido forms, and then in its turn becomes
an effective control of these libido tendencies.
The dissolution of the symbol is synonymous with a
dispersal of libido along the immediate path, or at least
with an almost irresistible urge towards direct application.
But the living symbol exorcises this peril. A symbol
loses its magical, or, if one prefers it, its redeeming power,
as soon as its dissolubility is recognised. An effective
symbol, therefore, must have a nature that is unimpeachable.'
It must be the best possible expression of the existing
world-philosophy, a container of meaning which cannot be
surpassed ; its form must also be sufficiently remote from
comprehension as to frustrate every attempt of the critical
intellect to give any satisfactory account of it ; and, finally,
its aesthetic appearance must have such a convincing appeal
to feeling that no sort of argument can be raised against
it on that score.
292 THE type-problem: in poetry
For a certain period the Grail symbol clearly fulfilled
these demands, and to this circumstance its living efficacy
was due, which, as the example of Wagner shows, is even
to-day not exhausted, although our age and our psychology
are urgent for its solution.
Official Christianity, therefore, absorbed certain Gnostic
elements which were manifesting themselves in the
psychology of the service of woman, and found a place
for them in an intensified worship of Mary. From an
abundance of equally interesting material I have selected
the Lorettian Litany as a familiar example of this assimila-
tion process. This assimilation into the general Christian
symbol dealt a death-blow to the service of woman, which
was really a swelling bud in the process of soul-culture
for man. His soul, which expressed itself in the image
of the chosen mistress, lost its individual expression in
this translation into the general symbol. Consequently the
possibility of an individual differentiation was also lost;
it was inevitably repressed by the collective expression.
Such deprivations always tend to have bad results, and
in this case they soon became apparent For, in so far
as the soul relation to woman was expressed in the
collective Virgin worship, the image of woman lost a
value to which human nature has a certain natural claim.
This value, for which only individual choice can provide
a natural expression, relapses into the unconscious when
the individual is replaced by a collective expression. In
the unconscious the image of woman now receives an
energic value which in its turn activates certain infantile
archaic dominants \
The relative depreciation of the real woman is thus
compensated by daemonic impulses, since all unconscious
contents, in so far* as they are activated by split off sums
1 For further references to this process cf. Jung, Psychology oj
Unconscious Processes , ch. ariv ( Collected Papers , 19x7).
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY *93
rf libido, appear projected upon the object. In a certain
sense man loves woman less as a result of this relative
depreciation — hence she appears as a persecutor, i.e. a
witch. Thus the delusion about witches, that ineradicable
blot upon the Later Middle Ages, developed along with,
and indeed as a result of, the intensified worship of the
Virgin. But this was not the only consequence.
Through the splitting-off and repression of an im-
portant progressive tendency a certain general activation
of the unconscious came about. This activation could
find no satisfying outlet in the general Christian symbol,
since adequate expression at once demands individual
forms of expression. Thus the way was paved for heresies
and schisms, against which a conscious Christian orienta-
tion must fanatically defend itself. The frenzy of the
Inquisition was the product of over-compensated doubt
which came crowding up from the unconscious, and its
final result was one of the greatest schisms of the Church,
viz. the Reformation.
From this rather lengthy discussion the following
insight is gained. We set out from that vision of Hermas
in which he was shown how a tower was to be built.
The old woman, who had at first been interpreted as
the Church, now explains that the tower is the symbol of
the Church ; whereby her significance is transferred to the
tower, with which the further text of the Poimen is wholly
taken up. Henceforth his principal concern is with the
tower, no longer with the old woman, and least of all with
the real Rhoda. The detachment of the libido from the
real object, its translation into the symbol and conversion
into a symbolic function, is thus completed. Henceforth
the idea of a universal and undivided Church, expressed
in the symbol of a jointless and immovable tower, becomes
an unshakable reality in the mind of Hermas.
There is a displacement of libido away from the object
294
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
into the subject, whereby the unconscious images are
activated. These images are archaic forms of expression,
which become symbols, and appear in their turn as
equivalents for relatively depreciated objects.
This process is in any case as old as mankind ;
symbols appear among the relics of prehistoric man, just
as they abound among the lowest living types of to-day.
Clearly, therefore, a biological function of supreme import-
ance must also be concerned in this symbol-forming
process. Since the symbol can come to life only at the
expense of a relative depreciation of the object, it follows
that its purpose is also concerned with object depreciation.
If the object had an unconditional value, it would also be
absolutely determining for the subject, thereby entirely
prohibiting all subjective freedom of action, since even a
relative freedom could no longer exist in the presence of
unconditional determination by the object. The condition
of absolute relatedness to the object is synonymous with a
complete externalization of the process of consciousness,
Le. with an identification of subject and object, whereby
every possibility of cognition is destroyed. In attenuated
form this condition still exists to-day among the primitives.
The so-called projections that are familiar enough in our
analytical practice are also mere residua of this original
identity of subject and object.
The prohibition and exclusion of all cognition and
conscious experience which results from such a state
means a considerable sacrifice of the power of adaptation,
and this weights the scales heavily against man, who is
already handicapped by his natural defencelessness and by
a progeny which for many years has a relative inferiority
to that of other animals. But the cognitionless state also
means a dangerous inferiority, from the standpoint of
affectivity, because an identity of feeling with the object
possesses the following disadvantages. Firstly, any object
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 295
whatsoever can affect the subject to any degree, and,
secondly, any sort of affect on the part of the subject also
immediately compromises and violates the object. An
episode from the life of a bushman may illustrate what I
mean : A bushman had a little son, upon whom he lavished
the characteristic doting fondness of the primitives. It is
obvious that, psychologically, such a love is wholly auto-
erotic, i.e, the subject loves himself in the object. In a
sense the object serves as an erotic mirror. One day the
bushman came home in a rage : he had been fishing, and
had caught nothing. As usual the little fellow ran eagerly
to meet him. But the father seized him and wrung
his neck upon the spot. Subsequently, of course, he
mourned for the dead boy with the same abandon and
lack of comprehension as had before made him strangle
him.
This case is a good example of the identity of the
object with the affect of the moment. Clearly such a
mentality is a very serious hindrance to every protective
organization of the tribe. From the standpoint of the
propagation and extension of the species, it is an unfavour-
able factor ; hence in a species with strong vitality it must
be repressed and transformed. This is the purpose the
symbol serves, and for this end it came into being, since it
withdraws a certain sum of libido from the object, which
is thereby relatively depreciated, bestowing the libido
surplus upon the subject. But this surplus operates
within the unconscious of the subject, who now finds
himself between an inner and an outer determinant,
whence arises the possibility of choice and a relative
subjective freedom.
The symbol is always derived from archaic residues,
or imprints engraven in the very stem of the race, about
whose age and origin one can speculate much although
nothing definite can be determined. It would certainly
296 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
be quite wrong to look to personal sources for the source
of the symbol, as for instance repressed sexuality. At
best, such a repression could only furnish the libido-sum
which activates the archaic imprint The imprint (engram)
corresponds with a functional inheritance whose existence
is not contingent upon ordinary sexual repression but pro-
ceeds from instinct differentiation in general Differentia-
tion of instinct is an essential biological measure ; it is not
something peculiar to the human species, for it finds an
even more drastic manifestation in the sexual deprivation
of the working bee.
In the foregoing instances of the vessel-symbol, I have
demonstrated the source of the symbol in archaic ideas.
Since we find the primitive notion of the uterus at the
root of this symbol, a similar origin might be surmised
in connection with the tower symbol. The tower may
well belong to that category of symbols, fundamentally
phallic, in which the history of symbols is so rich. It is
hardly to be wondered at that the moment which reveals
to Hermas the alluring couch, thus demanding the
repression of the erotic phantasy, should also evoke a
phallic symbol, which presumably corresponds with
erection. We saw that other symbolic attributes of the
Virgin Church have also an undoubted erotic origin,
already confirmed as such by their derivation from The
Song of Songs , and moreover expressly so interpreted
by the Fathers. The tower symbol of the Lorettian
Litany springs from the same source and may, therefore,
have a similar root-meaning. The attribute u ivory ”
given to the tower is doubtless of an erotic nature, since
it refers to the tint and texture of skin (Song of Songs ,
5, 14 : “ His belly is as bright ivory ”). But the tower
itself is also found in an unmistakably erotic connection
in The Song of Songs , 8, 10 : “lama wall, and my breasts
like towers”, which surely refers to the prominence of
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
297
the breasts with their full and elastic consistency, as in
the similar passage: “ His legs are as pillars of marble”
(5, 15). In further unison we find: “Thy neck is as a
tower of ivory”, and “Thy nose is as the tower of
Lebanon ” (7, 5), an obvious allusion to something slender
and projecting. These attributes originate in tactile and
organic sensations, which are transferred into the object
Just as a gloomy mood seems gray, and a joyous one
bright and coloured, the sense of touch is likewise
under the influence of subjective sexual sensations (in
this case the sensation of erection), whose quality is
transferred to the object The erotic psychology of The
Song of Songs effects an enhancement of value in the
object by directing upon it the images awakened in the
subject Ecclesiastical psychology employs these same
images in order to pilot the libido upon the figurative
object, while the psychology of Hermas raised the uncon-
sciously awakened image to an aim in itself wherein to
embody ideas which held a supreme importance for the
mentality of that time, namely the consolidation and
organization of the newly won Christian attitude and
view of life.
(b) The Relativity of the Idea of God in Meister Eckehart
The process which Hermas passed through, represents
on a small scale what took place in early medieval
psychology, namely, a new revelation of woman and the
flowering of the feminine Grail symbol. Hermas saw
Rhoda in a new light, while the sum of libido thereby
released became unconsciously transformed into the
accomplishments of the social task of his time.
It is, I think, characteristic of our psychology that
the present epoch was, as it were, ushered in by two
minds who were destined to have immense influence
upon the hearts and minds of the younger generation;
298 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
Wagner, the advocate of love, who in his music sounds
the whole scale of feeling from Tristan down to incestuous
passion, and from Tristan up to the loftiest spirituality
of the Grail, and Nietzsche, the advocate of power and
of the victorious will of the individuality. In his last and
loftiest utterance Wagner took hold of the Grail legend,
as Goethe selected Dante, while Nietzsche chose the
image of a lordly caste and a lordly morality, an image
which had found its embodiment in many a fair-haired
heroic and knightly figure of the Middle Ages. Wagner
breaks the bonds that stifle love, while Nietzsche shatters
the “ tables of value ” that cramp the individuality. They
both strive after similar goals, while at the same time
creating irremediable discord, for, where love is, individual
power can never prevail, while the dominating power of
the individual precludes the reign of love.
The fact that three of the greatest of German minds
should fasten upon early medieval psychology in their most
important works, is, in my view, proof enough that there
is still an unanswered problem surviving from that age.
It may be well, therefore, to try and gain a nearer
view of this question. For I have a strong impression
that the mysterious something which sprang to life in
certain knightly orders of that time (the Templars for
instance), and which seems to have found its expression
in the legend of the Grail, may possibly contain a shoot
or bud of a new orientation to life, in other words a new
symbol. The non-Christian or Gnostic character of the
Grail symbol takes us back to those Early Christian
heresies, those almost grandiose foundations, which con-
ceal so great an abundance of daring and brilliant
ideas. Now the Gnosis displays unconscious psychology
in full flower, perhaps in * almost perverse luxuriance ; it
reveals, therefore, that very element which most stoutly
resists the ( regula fidei ’, that Promethean, and creative
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
299
spirit which will submit only to the soul and to no collec-
tive ruling. Although in a crude form, we find in the
Gnosis that belief in the power of individual revelation
and of individual discernment which was absent in the
later centuries. This belief had its source in that proud
feeling of individual relationship with God which is sub-
ject to no human statute, and which may even constrain
the gods by the sheer might of understanding. Within
the Gnosis lay the beginning of that way which led to
the intuitions of German mysticism (with their immense
psychological significance) which was actually in its flower
at the time of which we are speaking.
The focussing of the question now before us immedi-
ately brings to our mind the greatest thinker of that time,
Meister Eckehart 1 Just as signs of a new orientation
became perceptible in chivalry, so in Eckehart new
thoughts confront us ; thoughts belonging to that same
psychic orientation which prompted Dante to follow the
image of Beatrice into the underworld of the unconscious,
and which inspired the singers who sang the rune of the
Grail.
Nothing is known, unfortunately, of Eckehart’s personal
life which could shed light upon the way which led him to
his knowledge of the soul. But it is with a sense of deep
contemplation that he observes in his discourse upon repent-
ance : “ ouch noch erfrdget man selten, daz die liutekoment
ze grdzen dingen, sie sien zu dem Srsten etwaz vertreten ”.
(“And still to-day one findeth rarely, that people come to
great things without they first go somewhat astray.”) This
permits us to conclude that he wrote from personal experi-
ence. Strangely appealing is Eckehart’s feeling of the
inner relation with God, when contrasted with the Christian
feeling of sinfulness. We feel ourselves transported into
1 Johannes (or Heinrich) Eckehart, German Dominican monk, bom
about 1250 and died about 1328. [Translator].
3<>o THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the atmosphere of the Upanishads. A quite extraordinary
enhancement of the sours value must have taken place in
Eckehart, Le. a magnified sense of his own inner being,
that enabled him to rise to a, so to speak, purely psycho-
logical, hence relative, conception of God and of His
relation with man.
The discovery and circumstantial formication of the
relativity of God to man and his soul, is, in my view, one of
the most important steps upon the way to a psychological
understanding of the religious phenomenon; it is the
dawning possibility of a liberation of the religious function
from the stifling limitations of intellectual criticism, though
this criticism has, of course, an equal right to existence.
We now come to the real task of this chapter, namely
the discussion of the relativity of the symbol. To my
mind the relativity of God denotes a point of view which
ceases to regard God as an “ absolute ”, i.e. removed from
the human subject and existing outside all human condi-
tions, but as, in a certain sense, dependent upon the human
subject ; it also involves the existence of a reciprocal and
indispensable relation between man and God, whereby
man is not merely regarded as a function of God, but
God also becomes a psychological function of man.
To our analytical psychology, which from the human
standpoint must be regarded as an empirical science, the
image of God is the symbolic expression of a certain
psychological state, or function, which has the character of
absolute superiority to the conscious will of the subject ;
hence it can enforce or bring about a standard of accom-
plishment that would be unattainable to conscious effort
This overwhelming impulse — in so far as the divine function
is manifested in action — or this inspiration that transcends
all conscious understanding, proceeds from a heaping-up
of energy in the unconscious. This libido accumulation
animates images which the collective unconscious contains
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
301
as latent possibilities. Here is the source of the God-
imago y that imprint which from the beginning of time
has been the collective expression of the most powerful
and absolute operation of unconscious libido-concentration
upon consciousness.
Hence, for our psychology, which as a science must
confine itself to the empirical within the limits set by our
cognition, God is not even relative, but a function of the
unconscious, namely the manifestation of a split-off sum
of libido, which has activated the God -imago. To the
orthodox view God is, of course, absolute, ue. existing in
Himself. Such a conception implies a complete severance
from the unconscious, which means, psychologically, a
complete unawareness of the fact that the divine effect
springs from one’s own inner self. But the standpoint of
the relativity of God signifies that a not inconsiderable
part of the unconscious processes is discerned, at least by
inference, as a psychological content Such an insight,
of course, can only take place when the soul is granted a
more than ordinary attention, when in fact the unconscious
contents are withdrawn from their projections into objects,
and a certain awareness is granted them (the contents),
so that they now appear as belonging to and conditioned
by the subject This was the case with the mystics.
Not that this was the first appearance of the idea of the
relativity of God in general, for there exists both naturally
and fundamentally a relativity of God among the primitives.
Almost universally on the lower human levels the idea
of God has a purely dynamic character, God is a
Divine force, related to health, to the soul, to medicine,
to riches, to the chief — a force which certain procedures
can procure, and turn to the making of things essential
to the life and health of man, as also upon occasion to
the production of magical and malevolent effects. The
primitive feels this force as much outside him as within,
301 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
i.e. it is just as much his own life-force as it is the
“medicine” in his amulet, or the influence emanating
from his chief. This is the first demonstrable conception
of a permeating and imbuing spiritual force. Psycho-
logically, the power of the fetich, or the prestige of the
medicine-man, is an unconscious subjective evaluation of
these objects. Fundamentally, therefore, it is a question
of the libido, which is present in the subject’s unconscious
and is perceived in the object, because whenever uncon-
scious contents are activated they appear projected. The
relativity of God of medieval mysticism is, therefore, a
harking -back to a primitive condition. Whereas the
kindred Eastern conceptions of the individual and supra-
individual Atman are not so much a regression to the
primitive as a constantly unfolding development away
from the primitive, in harmony with the Eastern way,
though still retaining principles already clearly present
and effective among the primitives. This harking-back
to the primitive is not at all surprising, in view of the
fact that every vital form of religion, either in its
ceremonials or its ethics, embodies one or more primitive
tendency, whence indeed proceed those mysterious in-
stinctive forces which promote the perfecting of human
nature in the religious process . 1 This recourse to, or
interrupted connection with, the primitive (as in the
Indian) means a contact with mother-Earth, the original
source of all power. Every point-of-view which is differ-
entiated to rational or ethical standards must sense these
instinctive forces as ‘impure’. But life itself flows from
clear and muddy springs. Hence every too great * purity ’
also lacks vitality. Every renewal of life emerges through
the muddy towards the clear. A constant effort towards
clarity and differentiation involves a proportionate lack of
1 There axe numerous examples of this. I have mentioned a few in
Psychology of the Unconscious .
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
303
vital intensity, because of the very exclusion of muddy
elements. The process of development needs the muddy
as well as the clear. This was clearly perceived by the
great relativist Meister Eckehart when he says :
“ Dar umbe lidet got geme den schaden der stlnden unde h&t
dicke gelitten und aller dickest verhenget fiber die menschen, die
er hat versehen, daz er sie ze grdzen dingen ziehen welle. Nim
war ! Wer was unserm herren ie lieber unde heimlicher denne
die aposteln wfiren ? Der beleip nie keiner, er viele in tdtsftnden,
alle w&ren sie tdtsfinder gewesen. Daz h&t er in der alten unde
niuwen 8 dicke bewiset von den, die ime verre die liebsten dam&ch
m§Ies wurden, und ouch noch erfraget man selten, daz die liute
koment ze grdzen dingen, sie sien ze dem Srsten etwaz vertreten."
(“ Therefore suffereth God willingly the mischief of sins and much
hath He suffered ; moreover, those hath he burdened most whom
he chose to lead to great things. Behold I who were more near
and dear to our Lord than the apostles ? None there was who
fell not into deadly sins ; all were mortal sinners. This hath he
shown in the old and new covenants (which he made) with those
who afterwards he loved the most ; and still to-day one rarely
findeth people coming to great things who first go not somewhat
astray* 9 ) — Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker, vol. ii
Both on account of his psychological penetration and
of his religious feeling and thought, Meister Eckehart is
the most brilliant representative of that critical movement
in the Church at the close of the thirteenth century. I
would like therefore to cite a few of his sayings, which
throw light upon his relativistic conception of God 1 :
(1) " For man is truly God, and God truly man ”
(2) “ Whereas who holdeth not God as such an inner posses-
sion, but with every means must fetch Him from without, either in
this thing or in that, where he seeketh Him insufficiently, with
every manner of deeds, people or places ; verily such a man hath
TTfm not, and easily something cometh to trouble him. And it is
not only evil company which -troubleth him, but also the good,
not only the street, but also the church, not only evil words and
deeds, but even the good. For the hinderance lieth within him-
1 Von den Hindemissen an wahrer Geistlichkeit . H. Bttttner,
Master Eckehart* s Schriften und Predigten, vol. ii, 185. (Diederichs,
Jena 1909)
304
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
self : in him God hath not yet become the world. Were He that
to him, then would he feel at ease in all places, and secure with all
people, always possessing God.” 1
This passage is of especial psychological interest, for
it shows a trait of the primitive idea of God which we
sketched above. “ With every means fetching God from
without” is synonymous with the primitive view that the
tondi 1 is to be procured from without. With Eckehart,
of course, it may be merely a figure of speech, through
which the original meaning still glimmers. In any case
Eckehart clearly understands God as a psychological value.
This is proved by the following sentence : “ Who fetcheth
God from without, troubled is he by objects.” For, when
God is without, He is necessarily projected into the object,
whereby the object acquires an excessive valuation. But
whenever this is the case, the object also gains a supreme
influence over the subject, holding him in a certain slavish
dependence. Eckehart is evidently referring to this familiar
subjection to the object, which makes the world appear in
the rdle of God, Le. as an absolutely determining factor.
Hence for such a one “God has not yet become the
world ”, says Eckehart, since for him the world has taken
the place of God. Such a man has not succeeded in
detaching and introverting the surplus value from the
object, thus converting it into an inner possession. Were
he to possess it in himself he would have God (this same
value) continually as object or world, whereby God would
become the world. In the same portion Eckehart says :
“ Whosoever is right in his feeling findeth things fitting in
all places and with all people, whereas he that is wrong
findeth nothing right wherever or with whom he may
be. For a man of right feeling hath God with him.” A
i GeisUiche Unterweisung, 4. (Btlttner, vol. ii, p. 8)
* The libido-concept of the Bataks. Wamecke, Die Religion dev
Batak (Leipzig 1909). Tondi is the name for the magic force around
Which everything turns, as it were.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
305
man who has this value in himself is everywhere well-
disposed ; he is not dependent upon objects, i.e. he is not
for ever needing and hoping from the object, what he
himself lacks.
It should be sufficiently evident from these considera-
tions that, for Eckehart, God is a psychological, or more
accurately a psycho-dynamic^ state .
(3) “ Again must ye understand the soul as the Kingdom of
God. For the soul is of like nature with Divinity . All that was
here spoken of God's Kingdom, so far as God Himself is this
Kingdom, may be truly said in like m ann er of the soul. All
things came to pass through Him , saith St John. This must
he understood of the soul , since the soul is the All . Such it is,
as an image of God. But as such is it also the Kingdom of God.
So deeply, saith one master, is God in the soul, that His whole
Divine nature resteth upon it. That God is in the soul is an
higher estate than that the soul is in God : when the soul is in
God, it is not blessed therein, but blessed indeed is the soul
which God inhabits. Of this be ye certain: God is Himself
blessed in the soul I ft
The soul, that ambiguous and variously - interpreted
concept, corresponds historically with a psychological
content to which a certain . independence must belong
within the limits of consciousness. For, if this were not
the case, man would never have arrived at the notion of
ascribing an independent nature to the soul, as though it
were an objectively discernible thing. Like every auto-
nomous complex, it must be a content to which spontaneity,
and hence a partial unconsciousness, necessarily belongs.
The primitive, as we know, usually possesses several souls,
i.e. several autonomous complexes with a considerable
degree of independence, which gives them the appearance
of having a separate existence (as in certain mental dis-
orders.) Ascending to the higher human levels, we find
the number of souls decreasing, until the highest level of
culture shows us the soul quite dispersed in the conscious-
ness of all psychic activities, and only granted a further
L
306 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
existence as a term for the totality of psychic processes.
This absorption of the soul into consciousness is just as
much a characteristic of Eastern as it is of Western
culture. In Buddhism everything is dissolved into con-
sciousness ; even the Samskaras, the unconscious con-
structive forces, must be possessed and transformed through
religious self-development. To this quite universal historic
development of the soul-concept the view of analytical
psychology stands definitely opposed, since the analytical
idea of the soul does not coincide with the totality of the
psychic functions. On the one hand, we define the soul as
the relation to the unconscious ; while, on the other, it is a
personification of unconscious contents. From the stand-
point of culture, it may seem deplorable that personifica-
tions of unconscious contents still exist, just as an educated
and differentiated consciousness might well lament the
existence of contents that are still unconscious. Since,
however, analytical psychology is concerned with man as
he is, and not with the hypothetical man which certain
views would like to make him, we have to admit that those
same phenomena which persuade the primitive to speak of
‘souls’, are in fact constantly happening, just as there are
still innumerable people among civilized European nations
who believe in ghosts. In spite of our carefully wrought
theory affirming the ‘ unity of the self’, according to which
autonomous complexes cannot exist, Nature does not
appear in the least concerned about such intelligent
notions.
If we regard the ‘ soul ’ as a personification of uncon
scious contents, so God, according to our previous defini-
tion, is also an unconscious content — a personification, in
so far as He is personally conceived, an image or expres-
sion, when regarded as purely or chiefly dynamic. God,
therefore, is essentially the same as the soul, in so far as
It is regarded as the personification of unconscious contents.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 307
Hence Meister Eckehart*s conception is purely psycho-
logical. So long as the soul, as he says, is only in God,
it is not blessed. If by ‘blessedness’ one understands
an especially intense and harmonious vital condition, such
a state, according to Eckehart, cannot exist, so long as
the dynamis which is termed God, the libido, is con-
cealed in objects. For, as long as the chief value or God
(after Eckehart) does not reside in the soul, power is
without, and therefore in objects. God, i.e. the chief
value, must be withdrawn from objects and brought into
the soul, which signifies a ‘higher estate’ and for God
‘blessedness’. Psychologically, this means: that the
libido appertaining to God, i.e. the projected over-value,
becomes recognized as projection ; 1 through such recogni-
tion objects fade in significance, whereby the surplus value
is accredited to the individuality, giving rise to an inten-
sified vital feeling, i.e. a new potential. God, i.e. the highest
intensity of life, then resides in the soul, in the unconscious.
But this does not mean that God becomes completely
unconscious, in the sense that the idea of Him also
vanishes from consciousness. It is as though the chief
value were shifted elsewhere, so that it is now found
within and not without Objects are no longer auto-
nomous factors, but God has become an autonomous
psychological complex. But an autonomous complex
is always only partially conscious , since it is only con-
ditionally associated with the ego, i.e. never to such an
extent that the ego could wholly embrace it, in which
case it would no longer be autonomous. From this
moment the over-valued object is no longer the determin-
ing factor, but the unconscious. The determining infeiu-
1 The recognition of something as a projection must never be under-
stood as a purely intellectual process. Intellectual cognition dis-
solves a projection only when it is already ripe for dissolution. To
withdraw libido from a projection that is not matured is not possible
by means of intellectual judgment and will.
308 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
ences now proceed from the unconscious, i.e. one feels
and knows them as coming from the unconscious, a
knowledge which produces a "unity of being ” (Eckehart),
i.e. a relation between conscious and unconscious, in which
of course the unconscious predominates.
We should now ask ourselves, whence comes this
“ blessedness ” or wonder of love 1 ? (dnanda, as the Indians
call the state of Brahman). In this State the superior
value lies in the unconscious, involving a fall of potential
in the conscious, which means to say that the unconscious
appears as the determining factor, while the self of the
reality-consciousness practically disappears. This state
is strongly reminiscent of the state of the child on the
one hand, and of the primitive on the other, who likewise
is immensely under the influence of the unconscious One
might conclusively say that the restoration of the earlier
paradisiacal state is the cause of this blessedness. But
we have still to understand why this original state is so
peculiarly blissful. The feeling of bliss accompanies all
those moments which have the character of flowing life,
moments, therefore, or states, when what was dammed
up can freely flow, when we have longer to satisfy this
or that condition or seek around with conscious effort in
order to find a way or effect a result We have all known
situations or moods ‘ when it goes of itself’, when there
is no longer any need to manufacture all sorts of wearisome
conditions by which joy or pleasure might be stimulated.
The age of childhood is the unforgettable token of
this joy, which, undismayed by things without, streams
all-embracing from within. * Childlikeness * is therefore
a symbol for the unique inner condition which accom-
panies blessedness. To be ‘like unto a child* means to
possess a treasury of constantly accessible libido. The
1 William Blake, the English mystic, says : " Energy is eternal
delight ", Poetical Works, Vol. i, p. 240. (London 1906)
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
309
libido of the child flows into things ; in this way he gains
the world, then by degrees loses himself in the world
(to use the language of religion) through a gradual over-
valuation of things. Whence arises the dependence upon
things, entailing the necessity of sacrifice, *.*. the drawing
away of libido, the severance of ties. This is the way
by which the intuitive doctrine of the religious system
attempts to re-assemble the wasted energy; indeed, this
harvesting-process is actually represented in its symbols.
The overvaluation of the object, as contrasted with the
inferiority of the subject, results in a retrogressive current
which would bring the libido quite naturally back to
the subject, were it not for the obstructing power of
consciousness.
Everywhere with the primitives we find religious
practice harmonizing with Nature, since the primitive is
able to follow his instinct without difficulty, first in one
direction and then in another. The practice of religion
enables him to recreate the needful magic force, or to
recover the soul that was lost during the night.
The objective of the great religions is contained in
the injunction ‘not of this world*, which suggests the
inward subjective movement of the libido into the un-
conscious. The general withdrawing and introversion of
the libido creates an unconscious libido -concentration,
which is symbolized as a ‘treasure*, as in the Parables
of the “costly pearl” and the “treasure in the field”.
Eckehart also uses the latter allegory, which he interprets
in the following way : “ The Kingdom of Heaven is like
unto a treasure which is hid in a field, saith Christ. This
field is . the soul — wherein the treasure of the Kingdom
of God lieth hidden. In the soul, therefore, are God and
all creatures blessed ” 1 This interpretation agrees with
our psychological principles. The soul is the personifica-
1 Btittner, Lc voL ii, p. 195.
3io THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
tion of the unconscious, where lies the treasure, i.e. the
libido which is submerged or absorbed in introversion.
It is this sum of libido which is described as ‘ the Kingdom
of God’. This signifies a constant unity or reconciliation
with God, a living in His Kingdom, i.e. in that state in
which a paramount libido accumulation lies in the un-
conscious, by which the conscious life is determined. The
libido concentrated in the unconscious comes from objects,
from the world, whose former ascendancy it conditioned.
God was then ‘without’, whereas now He works from
‘within’, as that hidden treasure which is conceived as
‘God’s Kingdom*. This clearly contains the idea that
the libido assembled in the soul represents a relation to
God (God’s Kingdom). Now when Meister Eckehart
reaches the conclusion that the soul is itself the Kingdom
of God, he conceives it as a relation to God, and God
as the power working within the soul and perceived by
it Eckehart even calls the soul the image of God.
Ethnological and historical ways of regarding the soul
make it abundantly evident that it represents a content
which belongs partly to the subject, but partly' also to
the world of spirits, i.e. to the unconscious. Hence the
soul has always an earthly as well as a rather ghostly
quality. It is the same with the magic power, the divine
force of the primitives, whereas the point of view of the
higher cultural levels definitely severs God from man,
finally exalting Him to the' heights of pure ideality. But
the soul never forgoes its middle station. Hence its
claim to be regarded as a function between the conscious
subject and these (to the subject) inaccessible depths of
the unconscious. The determining force (God) which
operates from these depths is reflected by the soul, i.e.
it creates symbols and images, and is itself only an
image. Through these images it transveys the forces of
the unconscious into the conscious; so that it is both
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
3ii
receiver and transmitter, a perceptive organ, in fact, for
unconscious contents. What it perceives are symbols.
But symbols are shaped energies, or forces, i.e. determining
ideas whose spiritual value is just as great as their
affective power. As Eckehart says, when the soul is in
God, it is not yet blessed, i.e. when this function of
perception is entirely flooded by the dynamis , it is by
no means a happy state. But when God is in the soul,
i.e. when the soul, as perception, comprehends the un-
conscious and takes on the imaged form or symbol of it,
this is a truly happy state. We perceive and realize that
the happy state is a creative state .
(4) Meister Eckehart utters these noble words :
“ If one asketh me * Wherefore do we pray, wherefore fast,
wherefore do we perform all manner of good works, wherefore are
we baptized, wherefore did God become Man ? *, I would answer
' For that God might be bom in the soul and the soul again in
God. Therefore is the Holy Script written. Therefore hath
God created the whole world, that God might be bom in the soul
and the soul again in God. The innermost nature of all com
meaneth wheat, and of all metal , gold , and of all birth , man l* ”
Here Eckehart frankly affirms that God’s existence is
dependent upon the soul, and, in the same breath, that the
soul is the birthplace of God. This latter sentence can
readily be understood in the light of our previous reflec-
tions. The function of perception (the soul) apprehends
the contents of the unconscious, and as a creative function
brings the dynamis to birth in symbolic form 1 . In the
psychological sense the soul brings to birth images which
the general rational consciousness assumes to be worthless.
Such images are certainly worthless, in the sense that they
cannot immediately be turned to account in the objective
world. The artistic is the foremost possibility for their
application, in so far as such a means of expression lies in
1 According to Eckehart the soul is just as much the comprehended
as the comprehended. BQttner^ l.c., vol. i, p. 18$.
312
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
one’s power 1 ; a second possibility is philosophical specula -
lalion 2 ; a third is the quasi-religious , which leads to
heresies and the founding of sects; there remains the
fourth possibility of employing the forces contained in the
images in every form of licentiousness.
The two latter forms were manifested in an especially
marked form in the Encratitic (abstinent, ascetic) and the
Antitactic (anarchical) schools of the Gnostics. As regards
reality-adaptation, there is, however, a certain indirect
value in raising these images to consciousness, since! the
relation to the real world is thereby cleared of an
admixture of phantasy. But the images possess their
chief value in assuring subjective happiness and well-
being, irrespective of the changing aspects of outer
conditions. To be adapted is certainly an ideal. Yet
adaptation is not always possible ; there are situations in
which the only correct adaptation is patient endurance.
A passive adaptation of this kind is made possible and
easy through a development of the phantasy-images. I
used the word “ development ”, because at first the
phantasies are merely raw material of doubtful value. In
order to reach that form which is likely to yield the
maximum value, they must be submitted to treatment.
This treatment is a matter of technique, which it is hardly
appropriate to discuss here. For the sake of clearness I
need only say that there are two possibilities of treatment :
(i) the reductive, and (2) the synthetic, method. The
former traces everything back to primitive instincts ; the
latter develops a process from the given material which
aims at the differentiation of the personality.
The reductive and synthetic methods are mutually
complementary, for reduction to instinct leads to reality,
1 Literary examples of this are: E. T. A. Ho ffman , Meyrink,
Barlach (Der tote Tag ) : on the higher levels, Spitteler, Goethe (Faust),
Wagner.
> Nietzsche in Zarathustra.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 313
in fact to the overvaluation of reality, and hence to the
necessity of sacrifice. The synthetic method develops the
symbolic phantasies resulting from the libido which is
introverted through sacrifice. Out of this development
a new attitude towards the world arises, whose very
difference guarantees a new potential. This transition to
a new attitude I have termed transcendent function K In
the regenerated attitude, the libido that was formerly
submerged in the unconscious emerges in the form of
positive achievement It corresponds with a newly-won
and visible life, whose image is the symbol of the Divine
birth. Conversely, when the libido is withdrawn from the
outer object and sinks into the unconscious, the * soul is
bom in God *. But because it is, essentially, a negative
act as regards daily living, and a symbolic descent to the
• deus absconditus ’ (concealed God), who possesses very
different qualities from the God that shines by day, this
is not a happy state (as Eckehart rightly observes) 1 2 .
Eckehart speaks of the Divine birth as of an oft-
recurring process. Actually the thing we are dealing
with here is a psychological process, which unconsciously
repeats itself almost continually, but of which we are only
relatively conscious in its most extensive fluctuations.
Goethe’s idea of systole and diastole certainly hit the
mark intuitively. It may have to do with a vital rhythm,
or with fluctuations of vital forces, which as a rule take
place unconsciously. This may also explain why the
existing terminology for this process is either prevailingly
religious or mythological, since such expressions or
formulae are primarily related to unconscious psychological
1 Compare a previous handling of this theme in Psychology oj
Unconscious Processes (Jung).
* Eckehart says : “ Therefore do I turn back once more unto myself,
there do I find the deepest places, deeper than hell itself ; but again my
wretchedness urgeth me hence : Lo, I cannot escape myself I Herein
will I plant myself and here will I remain.” Bhttner, l.c., i, 180. #
L*
314 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
facts and not — as scientific myth interpretation often
asserts — to phases of the moon and other planetary events.
And because it is pre-eminently a question of unconscious
processes, we have, scientifically, the greatest possible
difficulty so far to extricate ourselves from the language
of metaphor, as at least to attain the level of the figurative
speech of other sciences. Veneration for the great natural
mysteries, which religious language endeavours to express
in symbols consecrated by their antiquity, significance,
and beauty, will suffer no injury from the extension of
psychology upon this terrain, to which science has hitherto
found no access. We only shift the symbols back a little,
thus shedding light upon a portion of their realm, but
without embracing the error that by so doing we have
created anything more than a new symbol for that same
enigma which confronted all the ages before us. Our
science is also a language of metaphor, but from the
practical standpoint it succeeds better than the old
mythological hypothesis, which expresses itself by concrete
presentations, instead of, as we do, by conceptions.
5. The soul “ through its being a creature first made God, so
that formerly, until the soul was made something, there was none
(God). A little while since I declared ‘ that God is God, of whom I
am a cause/ That God is. He hath from the soul : that He is
Godhead, hath He from Himself/* (Bflttner, vol. i, p. 198)
6. “ But God also becometh and passeth away/’ (Bfittner,
vol. i, p. 147)
7. “ Because all creatures proclaim Him, God becometh.
While I still abode in the ground and bottom of the Godhead, in
its flood and source, no man questioned me, whither I went or
what I did : none was there who could have questioned me.
In the moment I flowed forth all creatures proclaimed God. —
And why speak they not of the Godhead ? — All that is in the
Godhead, is One, and nothing can one say of it. Only God doeth
something ; the Godhead doeth nothing, it hath nothing to do,
and never hath it looked about for aught to do. God and God-
head are different as doing and doing nothing/’ ... “ When I
again come home into God, I make nothing more in myself ; so
thjs my breaking-through is much more excellent than my first
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
315
issue. For I — the one— verily raise all creatures out of their own ,
into my perception , so that in me they also become the One I
When I then go back into the ground and bottom of the God-
head, into its flood and source, none asketh me whence do I
come, or whither have I been : for none hath missed me. . . .
Which meaneth God passeth away** (Bhttner, vol. i, p. 148)
As we see from these citations, Eckehart distinguishes
between God and the Godhead ; the Godhead is the All ;
neither knowing nor possessing Itself, whereas God appears
as a function of the soul , just as the soul appears as a
function of the Godhead. The Godhead is clearly the
all-pervading creative power; psychologically, it is the
generating, producing instinct, that neither knows nor
possesses itself, comparable with Schopenhauer’s concep-
tion of the will But God appears as issuing forth from
the Godhead and the soul. The soul as creature "ex-
presses” Him. He exists, in so far as the soul is
distinguished from the unconscious, and in so far as it
perceives the forces and contents of the unconscious ; he
passes away, as soon as the soul is immersed in the “ flood
and source” of unconscious energy. Thus Eckehart says
in another place :
" As I came forth out of God, all things said ‘ There is a God ! '*
That cannot now make me blessed, for therewith I conceive myself
as creature. But in the breaking-through, when I will to stand
free in the will of God, and also free of God's will, and all His
works, even of God Himself — then am I more than all creatures,
then am I neither God nor creature : I am, what I was, and what
I shall remain, now and evermore ! Then do I receive a push
which brings me up above all the angels. In this push I am be-
come so rich that God cannot be enough for me, even in all which
as God He is, and in all His Divine works : for in this breaking-
through I receive what I and God have in common. Then I
am what I was, then I neither increase nor diminish, for I am
something unmoved which moveth all things. Here God findeth
no more place in man, for here hath man conquered again through
his poverty what eternally he hath been and ever will remain.
Here is God taken into the spirit."
316 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
The “coming forth” signifies a becoming aware of
the unconscious contents, and of unconscious energy in
the form of an idea bom of the soul. This is an act of
conscious discrimination from the unconscious dynamis y
a severance of the ego as subject, from God {i.e. the
unconscious dynamis) as object In this way God “be-
cometh”. When, through the “breaking-through”, ie.
through a “ cutting off” of the ego from the world, and
through an identification of the ego with the motivating
dynamis of the unconscious, this severance is once more
resolved, God disappears as object and becomes the
subject which is no longer distinguished from the ego, ie.
the ego as a relatively late product of differentiation,
becomes once more united with the mystic, dynamic,
universal participation (“participation mystique” of the
primitives). This is the immersion in the “flood and
source”. The numerous analogies with the ideas of the
East are at once evident Writers more competent than
myself have already fully elaborated them. But in the
absence of direct influence this parallelism proves that
Eckehart thinks from the depth of the collective psyche
which is common to East and West. This common basis,
for which no common historical background can be made
answerable, is the primordial foundation of primitive
mentality, with its primitive energic notion of God, in
which the impelling dynamis has not yet crystallized
into the abstract idea of God.
This harking-back to primeval nature, this religiously
organized regression to psychic conditions of early times,
is common to all religions which are in the deepest sense
living; commencing with the identification backward of
the totem ceremonies of the Australian negro \ continuing
down to the ecstasies of the Christian mystics of our
own age and civilization. This retrogressive process re-
1 Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia.
317
THE TYPE-PROBLEM. IN POETRY
establishes an original state or attitude, viz. the improb-
ability of the identity with God, and, by virtue of this
improbability, which has nevertheless become a supremely
important experience, a new potential is produced — the
world is created anew, because the individual’s attitude to
the object has been regenerated.
When speaking of the relativity of the symbol of God,
it is a duty of the historical conscience also to mention
that solitary poet who, as a tragic fate willed it, could
find no relation to his own vision : Angelus Silesius 1 .
What Meister Eckehart laboured to express with great
effort of mind, and often in hardly intelligible language,
Silesius sings in brief, touching, intimate verses, which
reveal in their naive simplicity the saifie relativity of God
that Meister Eckehart had already conceived. The few
verses I quote will speak for themselves :
I know that without me
God can no moment live ;
Were I to die, then He
No longer could survive.
God cannot without me
A single worm create ;
Did I not share with Him
Destruction were its fate.
I am as great as God,
And He is small like me ;
He cannot be above.
Nor I below Him be.
In me is God a fire
And I in Him its glow ;
In common is our life.
Apart we cannot grow.
God loves me more than Self
My love doth give His weight,
Whate’er He gives to me
I must reciprocate.
He’s God and man to me.
To Him I’m both indeed ;
His thirst I satisfy.
He helps me in my need.
This God, who feels for us.
Is to us what we will ;
And woe to us, if we
Our part do not fulfil.
God is whate’er He is,
I am what I must be ;
If you know one, in sooth.
You know both Him and me.
I am not outside God,
Nor leave I Him afar ;
I am His grace and light.
And He my guiding star.
I am the vine, which He
Doth plant and cherish most ;
The fruit which grows from me
Is God, the Holy Ghost.
i Johann Scheffler, mystic and doctor, 1624-77.
318
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
I am God’s child, His son.
And He too is my child ;
We are the two in one,
Both son and father mild*
To illuminate my God
The sunshine I must be ;
My. beams must radiate
His calm and boundless sea.
It would be ludicrous to assume that such thoughts as
these, and those of Meister Eckehart, are nothing but
the vain products of conscious speculation. Such thoughts
are always significant historical phenomena, the yield of
unconscious tides in the collective psyche. Thousands of
other nameless ones are behind, standing with similar
thoughts and feelings below the threshold of consciousness,
ready to open the gates of a new age. In the boldness
of these ideas speaks the imperturbable and immovable
certainty of the unconscious mind, which will bring about
with the finality of a natural law a spiritual transformation
and renewal. With the Reformation the current reached
the general surface of conscious life. The Reformation in
a great measure did away with the Church as the inter-
mediary and dispenser of salvation, and established once
again the personal relation with God. This was the
culminating point in the objectification of the idea of God,
and from this point the concept of God again became
increasingly subjective. The logical result of this sub-
jectifying process is a splitting-up into sects, and its most
extreme outcome is individualism, representing a new form
of ‘remoteness’, whose immediate danger is submersion
in the unconscious dynamis . The cult of the ‘blonde
beast’ springs from this development, besides much else
that distinguishes ours from other ages. But, whenever
this rechute into instinct takes place, an ever growing
resistance against the purely shapeless and chaotic character
of sheer dynamis inevitably appears, the unquenchable
need for form and law. The soul, which dives into the
stream, must also create the symbol, which embraces,
maintains, and expresses this energy. It is this process
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 319
in the collective psyche which is either felt or intuitively
sensed by those poets and artists whose chief creative
source is the collective unconscious (J.e. perceptions of
unconscious contents), and whose intellectual horizon is
sufficiently wide to apprehend the main problems of the
age, at least in their outer aspects.
Spitteler’s Prometheus marks a psychological turning-
point: he depicts the falling asunder of the pairs of
opposites which were formerly together. Prometheus the
artist, the soul-server, disappears from human ken ; while
human society in obedience to a soul-less moral routine
is delivered over to Behemoth, the antagonistic, destructive
outcome of an outlived ideal. At the right moment
Pandora (the soul) creates the saving jewel in the uncon-
scious, which, however, does not reach mankind because
men fail to understand it The change for the better
takes place only through the intervention of the Promethean
tendency, which by virtue of its insight and understanding
brings first a few, and then many, individuals to their
senses. It can hardly be doubted that this work of
Spitteler has its roots in the intimate life of its creator.
But, if it consisted only in a poetic elaboration of this
purely personal experience, it would to a large extent
lack general validity and permanence. Yet, because it is
not merely personal but is largely concerned with the
presentation of the collective problems of our time as
personally experienced, it achieves universal validity. Its
first appearance was none the less certain to encounter the
apathy of contemporaries, for contemporaries are in the
great majority only fitted to maintain and appraise the
immediate present, thus helping to bring about that same
fatal issue whose confusion the divining, creative mind had
already sought to unravel.
3*o
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
5. The Nature of the Reconciling Symbol in Spitteler
There still remains an important question to discuss :
namely the character of this jewel or symbol of renewed
life, which the poet divines as the vessel of joy and deliver-
ance. We have compared a number of excerpts, which
substantiate the “ Divine ” nature of the jewel. We find
it more or less clearly stated that the symbol contains
possibilities for new energic deliveries, i.e. the release of
libido unconsciously bound. The symbol always says:
In some such form as this will a new manifestation of
life, a deliverance from the bondage and weariness of
life, be found. The libido which is freed from the un-
conscious by means of the symbol is symbolized as a
young or rejuvenated God ; in Christianity, for instance,
Jehovah achieved a transformation into the loving Father,
embracing an altogether higher and more spiritual morality.
The motif of the God-renewal 1 is universal, and therefore
presumably familiar. Referring to the redeeming power
of the jewel, Pandora says : “ But lo ! I have heard of a
race of men, full of sorrow and deserving of pity ; therefore
have I conceived a gift, with which, perchance, an thou
grantest my petition, I may soothe and solace their many
woes/’ 2 The leaves of the tree which shelter the birth
sing : “ For here abideth presence, blessedness and grace.” 2
Love and joy is the message of the “ wonderchild ”,
the new symbol ; hence a sort of paradisiacal state. This is
parallel with the message that heralded the birth of Christ,
while the greeting by the Sun-goddess 4 and the miracle,
wherein men at remote distances became ‘good* and
blessed at the moment of the birth, 6 are attributes of the
birth of Buddha. Concerning the ‘Divine blessing * I
wish to emphasize only this one significant passage:
1 Cf. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious .
* Spitteler, Prometheus and Epimetheus, p. 108. * Ibid., p. 127.
* Ibid., p. 132. « Ibid., p. 129.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
321
“ Those images return again to every man, whose rainbow
tinted, dream -like fabric once painted his childhood’s
future” 1 . This is clearly a statement that childhood’s
phantasies tend to go to fulfilment, i.e. that these images
are not lost, but come again in ripe manhood and should
be fulfilled. Old Kule in Barlach’s Der tote Tag 2 says :
“ When I lay o’ nights, and the pillows of darkness weigh me
down, at times there presses about me a light that resounds,
visible to mine eyes and audible to mine ears ; and there about
my bed stand the lovely forms of a better future. Stiff are they
yet, but of radiant beauty, still sleeping — but he who shall awaken
them would make for the world a fairer face . A hero would he be
who could do it” “ What would those hearts be like which then
might beat ! Quite other hearts, thrilling so differently from those
that beat to-day.” — (Of the images) “ They stand not in the
sun and nowhere are they lit by the sun. But they shall and
must (come) once out of the night. That would be the master-
work, to bring them up into the Sun ; there would they live.”
Epimetheus also yearns for the image, the jewel ; in
his speech on the statue of Heracles (the hero !) he says :
“ This is the meaning of the image, and with the under-
standing of it our sole achievement shall be, that we seize
and experience the opportunity so that a jewel shall ripen
above our head, a jewel that we must win." * So too when
the jewel, declined by Epimetheus, is brought to the
priests, these sing in just the same strain as did Epimetheus
in his former craving for the jewel: “Oh come, oh God
with Thy grace”, only to repudiate and revile in the very
next instant the heavenly jewel that is offered them. The
beginning of the hymn sung by the priests is not difficult
to recognize as the Protestant hymn :
“ Living Spirit once again
Come Thou true eternal God !
Nor Thy power descend in vain.
Make us ever Thine abode ;
So shall spirit , joy and light
Dwell in us, where all was night.
1 Spitteler, l.c., p. 128. * Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1912, pp. 16 ff.
* Spitteler, l.c., p. 138.
32a
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
Spirit Thou of strength and power
Thou new Spirit God hath given
Aid us in temptation's hour
Train and perfect us for heaven ” etc.
This hymn is a perfect parallel with our foregoing argu*
ment It wholly corresponds with the rationalistic nature
of Epimethean creatures that the same priests that sing
this hymn should reject the new spirit of life, the newly-
cieated symbol. Reason must always seek the solution upon
rational, sequential, logical ways, in which it is certainly
justified in all normal situations and problems ; but in the
greatest and really decisive questions the reason proves
inadequate. It is incapable of creating the image, the
symbol ; for the symbol is irrational. When the rational
way has become a cul de sac — which is its inevitable and
constant tendency — then, from the side where one least
expects it, the solution comes. (“ What good thing cometh
out of Nazareth ? ” ) Such, for instance, is the psychological
law underlying the Messianic prophecies. The prophecies
themselves are projections of the unconscious, which always
foreshadows the future event Because the solution is irra-
tional, the appearance of the Redeemer is associated with
an impossible, i.e. irrational condition, the pregnancy of the
Virgin ( Isaiah , 7, 14). This prophecy, like many another,
has impossible conditions attaching to it ; as for instance :
“ Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Bimam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.” [Macbeth, IV, i)
The birth of the Saviour, le. the rise of the symbol,
happens in that very place where one is least expecting
it, whence indeed a solution is of all things the most
improbable. Thus Isaiah says (53, 1) :
** Who hath believed our report ?
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?
For he grew up before Him as a tender plant.
And as a root out of the dry ground :
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
3*3
He hath no form nor comeliness ;
And when we shall see him,
There is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men ;
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief :
And we hid as it were our faces from him ;
He was despised and we esteemed him not.**
Not only does the redeeming power spring where nothing
is expected, but it also reveals itself, as this passage
shows, in a form which to the Epimethean judgment
contains no special value. In Spitteler’s description of
the symbol’s rejection there can hardly have been any
conscious reference to the Biblical model, or one would
certainly be able to trace it in his words. It is much
more likely that he too created from those same depths,
whence prophets and creative minds call up the redeeming
symbol.
The appearance of the Saviour signifies a reconciliation
of the opposites :
“ The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb.
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid ;
And the calf and the young lion and the failing together.
And a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed ;
Their young ones shall lie down together :
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp.
And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cocka-
trice 1 den.” — Isaiah, 11, 6 ff.
The nature of the redeeming symbol is that of a child (the
“ wonderehild ” of Spitteler), i.e. child-likeness or an attitude
which assumes nothing is of the very nature of the symbol
and its function. This “childlike” attitude carries with
it the condition eo ipso that, in place of self-will and
rational purposiveness, another guiding principle shall
have effect whose Divinity is synonymous with ‘superior
power’. The guiding principle is of an irrational nature,
3 2 4
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
wherefore it appears in a miraculous guise. Isaiah gives
this character very beautifully :
“ For unto us a child is bom.
Unto us a son is given ;
And the government shall be upon his shoulder :
And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, The mighty God.
The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
— Isaiah , 9, 5.
These conditions give the essential qualities of the redeem-
ing symbol, which we have already established above.
The criterion of the "Divine" effect is the irresistible
force of the unconscious impulse. The hero is always the
figure endowed with magical power, who makes the
impossible possible. The symbol is the middle way,
upon which the opposites unite towards a new move-
ment, a water-course that pours forth fertility after long
drought The tension that precedes the release is likened
to a pregnancy :
" Like as a woman with child.
That draweth near the time of her delivery.
Is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs ;
So have we been in Thy sight, O Lord.
We have been with child, we have been in pain.
We have as it were brought forth wind ;
We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth ;
Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise.”
— Isaiah , 26, 17 ff.
In the act of redemption, what was inanimate and dead
comes to life, t.e. psychologically, those functions which
have lain fallow and unfertile, psychic elements that were
unused, repressed, despised, under-valued, etc., suddenly
burst forth and begin to live. It is precisely the less-
valued function, whose life was threatened with extinction
by the differentiated function, that continues \ This motif
recurs in the New Testament idea of the awoicaTcurrcuw
1 Compare my discussion on the Schiller letters.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
325
iraarr&v (restoration for all), or reintegration \ which is a
higher evolutionary form of that world-wide version of the
hero-myth in which the hero, on his exit from the belly of
the whale, brings with him not only his parents but the
whole company of those previously swallowed by the
monster — what Frobenius calls the "universal hatching
out” 1 2 * * . This association with the hero-myth is also con-
firmed by Isaiah in the two verses :
“ In that day the Lord
With His sore and great and strong sword
Shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent,
Even leviathan that crooked serpent ;
And He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea ” — Isaiah , 27, 1.
With the birth of the symbol, the regression of the libido
into the unconscious ceases. Regression is converted into
progression, damming-up gives place to flowing; where-
upon the absorbing power of the primeval is broken. Thus
Kule says in Barlach’s drama Der tote Tag :
" And there about my bed stand the lovely forms of a better
future. Stiff are they yet, but of radiant beauty, still sleeping —
but he who shall awaken them would make for the world a fairer
face. A hero would he be who could do it.
Mother : An heroic life in misery and dire need 1
Kule : But perchance there might be one 1
Mother : He first must bury his mother ”
I have abundantly illustrated the motif of the “mother-
dragon” in an earlier work 8 , so I may spare myself a
repetition of it here. The dawn of new life and fruitful-
ness in the direction where nothing could be expected is
also sung by Isaiah :
" Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened.
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.
And the tongue of the dumb sing :
1 Epistle to the Romans, 8, 19.
* Frobemus, Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes .
* Psychology of the Unconscious . We find in Spitteler a parallel
with the slaughter of Leviathan in the overpowering of Behemoth.
$36
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
For in the wilderness shall waters break out.
And streams in the desert.
And the parched ground shall become a pool.
And the thirsty land springs of water :
In the habitation of jackals, where each lay.
Shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
And an highway shall be there , and a way.
And it shall be called The way of holiness ;
The unclean shall not pass over it ;
But it shall be for those :
The wayfaring men, yea fools.
Shall not go astray therein.” — Isaiah , 35, 5 if.
The redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which
life can move forward without torment and compulsion.
Holderlin says in Patinos :
f< Near is God and hard to seize.
But wherever danger lurks
Groweth the thing that saves.”
That sounds as though the nearness of God were a danger,
t.e. as though the concentration of libido in the unconscious
were a danger to the conscious life. And this is actually
the case; for the more the libido is invested — or, more
accurately, invests itself— in the unconscious, the greater
becomes the influence, or effective potentiality, of the
unconscious; which means that all the rejected, thrown
aside, outlived function possibilities which for generations
have been entirely lost, become reanimated and begin to
exercise an increasing influence upon consciousness, not-
withstanding often desperate resistance on the part of
conscious insight The saving factor is the symbol, which
is able to reconcile the conscious with the unconscious and
embrace them both.
While the consciously disposable libido becomes
gradually used up in the differentiated function, and is
only restored again with constantly increasing difficulty,
and while the symptoms of inner discord multiply, there is
an ever growing danger of a flooding and disintegration
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY 327
by unconscious contents ; but all the time the symbol is
developing which is fitted to resolve the conflict But the
symbol is so intimately bound up with the dangerous and
threatening that it may either be confounded with it, or
its appearance may actually call forth the evil and
destructive. In every instance the appearance of the
redeeming factor Is closely linked up with ruin and devas-
tation. If the old were not ripe for death, nothing new
would appear ; and, if the old were not injuriously blocking
the way for the new, it could not and need not be rooted
out This natural psychological association of the
opposites is also found in Isaiah where (7, 16 ff. ; 7, 14) we
find that a virgin is to bear a son, who shall be called
Immanuel. Immanuel significantly means ‘ God with us’,
i.e. union with the latent dynamis of the unconscious,
which is assured in the redeeming symbol. In the verses
which immediately follow, we see what this reconciliation
portends.
“ For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and
choose the good.
The land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be
forsaken.*'
8, 1 : “ Moreover the Lord said unto me : * Take thee a great
roll, and write in it with a man's pen. Concerning Maher-shalal-
hash-baz (‘ Rob soon. Hasten booty ')."
8, 3 : “ And I went unto the prophetess ; and she conceived,
and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me : ‘ Call his name
Maher r shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have know-
ledge to cry My father, and My mother, the riches of Damascus
and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of
Assyria.' "
8, 6 : “ Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of
Shiloah that go softly — Behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them
the waters of the River, strong and many, even the king of
Assyria and all his glory ; and he shall come up over all his
channels, and go over all his banks ; and he shall pass through
Judah ; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to
the neck ; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth
of thy land, O Immanuel."
328 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
I have already pointed out in my book Psychology of the
Unconscious that the birth of the God is threatened by
the dragon, the danger of inundation, and child-murder.
Psychologically, this means that the latent dynamis may
burst forth and overwhelm consciousness. For Isaiah this
peril is the enemy-king, who rules a hostile and powerful
realm. The problem for Isaiah, of course, is not psycho-
logical, but concrete, on account of his complete projection.
With Spitteler, on the contrary, the problem is already
very psychological, and, therefore, detached from the
concrete object ; it is nevertheless expressed in forms that
closely resemble those in Isaiah^ although it is hardly
necessary to assume a conscious derivation.
The birth of the deliverer is equivalent to a great
catastrophe, since a new and powerful life issues forth
just where no life or force or new development was
anticipated. It streams forth out of the unconscious, i\e.
from that part of the psyche which, whether we desire it
or not, is unknown and therefore treated as nothing by all
rationalists. From this discredited and rejected region
comes the new tributary of energy, the revivification of
life. But what is this discredited and despised region?
It is the sum of all those psychic contents which are
repressed on account of their incompatibility with conscious
values, hence the ugly, immoral, wrong, irrelevant, useless,
etc. ; which means everything that at one time appeared
so to the individual in question. Now herein lies the
danger that the very force with which these things re-
appear, as well as their new and wonderful brilliance,
may so intrigue the individual that he either forgets or
repudiates all former values. What he formerly despised
is now a supreme principle, and what was formerly truth
now becomes error. This reversal of values is tantamount
to a destruction of previously accepted values; hence it
resembles the devastation of a country by floods.
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
329
Thus, with Spitteler, Pandora’s heavenly gift brings
evil both to the country and to man. Just as, in the
classical saga, diseases streamed from Pandora’s box, to
flood and ravage the land, a similar evil is caused by the
jewel. To grasp this, we must first probe into the nature
of this symbol. The first to find the symbol are the
peasants, as the shepherds are the first to greet the
Saviour. They turn it about in their hands, first this
way then* that, “until at length they are quite dumb-
founded by its strange, immoral unlawful appearance”.
When they brought it to the king, and he, to prove it,
showed it to the conscience, demanding its Yea or Nay
about it, stricken with terror it sprang pell-mell from the
wardrobe to the floor, where it ran and hid itself under
the bed with “impossible suspicions”. Like a fleeing
crab “staring with venomous eyes and malevolently
brandishing its twisted claws, the conscience peered
from under the bed, and it came to pass that whenever
Epimetheus nearer pushed the image, the further did
the other recoil with gesticulations of disgust And thus
all silent it crouched, and never a word, nay not a syllable,
did it utter, however much the king might beg and
entreat and cajole with every manner of speech/’
To the conscience evidently the new symbol was
acutely unsympathetic. The king, therefore, bade the
peasants bear the jewel to the priests.
“ But hardly had Hiphil-Hophal (the high-priest) glanced at
the face of the image than he began to shudder and sicken, and,
raising his arms as though to guard his forehead from a blow,
he cried and shouted : 1 Away with this mockery, for in it is
something opposed to God; moreover carnal is its heart and
insolence flashes from its eyes/ ”
Thereupon the peasants brought the jewel to the
academy ; but the professors of the university found that
the image lacked “feeling and soul”; moreover, “it
330 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
wanted in sincerity, and had in general no guiding
thought”.
Finally the goldsmith found the jewel to be spurious
and of common metal. On the market-place, where the
peasants wished to get rid of the image, the police
descended upon it At sight of the image the guardians
of the law exclaimed:
“ Dwells there no heart in your body and shelters no con-
science in your soul, that ye dare thus openly before all eyes to
expose this sheer, wanton, shameless nakedness ? . . . And
now away with ye in haste ! and woe upon you if by any chance
the sight of it hath polluted our stainless children and unsullied
wives.”
The symbol is characterized as strange, immoral,
unlawful, opposed to moral sense, antagonizing our feeling
and idea of the spiritual, as well as our conception of the
‘ Divine 1 ; it appeals to sensuality, is shameless and liable
to become a serious danger to public morality by the
stimulation of sexual phantasies. Such attributes define
an essence which is in frank opposition to our moral
values ; but it is also opposed to our aesthetic judgment,
since it lacks the higher feeling-values; and finally the
absence of a "guiding thought” suggests an irrationality
of its intellectual content The verdict “ opposed to God ”
might also be rendered * anti-Christian *, since this history
is localized neither in remote antiquity nor in China
This symbol, then, by reason of all its attributes, is a
representative of the inferior function, hence of unrecog-
nized psychic contents. It is obvious that the image
represents — though it is nowhere stated — a naked human
figure, in fact, ‘living form*. This form expresses com-
plete freedom, which means to be just as one is — as also
the duty, to be just as one is : it accordingly stands for
the highest possible attainment of aesthetic as well as
moral beauty. It signifies man as he might be through
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
33i
Nature and not through some artificially-prepared, ideal
form. Such an image, presented to the eyes of a man as
he is at present, can have no other effect than to release
in him all that has lain bound in slumber and has not
shared in life. If by chance he be only partly civilized,
and still more than half barbarian, all his barbarism will
be aroused at such a vision. For a man’s hatred is always
concentrated upon that which makes him conscious of
his bad qualities. Hence the jewel’s fate was sealed at
the moment of its appearance in the world. The dumb
shepherd-lad who first found it is half cudgelled to death
by the enraged peasants ; then the peasants “ hurl ” the
jewel upon the road. Thus the redeeming symbol ends
its brief but typical course. The association with the
Christian passion-theme is unmistakable. The redeem-
ing nature of the jewel is also revealed in the fact that
it appears only once in a thousand years; it is a rare
occurrence, this “ flowering of the treasure ”, this appear-
ance of a Saviour, a Saoshyant, or a Buddha.
The end of the jewel’s career is mysterious : it falls into
the hands of a wandering Jew. “No Jew of this world
was it, and strange to us beyond measure seemed his
raiment” 1 . This peculiar Jew can only be Ahasuerus,
who did not accept the actual Redeemer, and here again
steals, as it were, the redeeming-image. The Ahasuerus
legend is a medieval Christian saga, in which form it cannot
be dated back earlier than the beginning of the thirteenth
century 2 . Psychologically, it springs from an element of
the personality or a sum of libido which finds no application
in the Christian attitude to life and the world, and is
accordingly repressed. The Jews were always a symbol
for this repressed portion, which accounts for the medieval
delirium of persecution against the Jews. The ritual-
1 Spitteler, /.e., p. 163.
1 E. Koaig, Ahasvtr (1907)
33 *
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
murder notion contains the idea of the rejection of the
Redeemer in an acute form, for one sees the mote in one’s
own eye as a beam in the eye of one’s brother. The
ritual-murder idea also plays a part in the Spitteler story,
since the Jew steals the wonder-child sent from Heaven.
This idea is a mythological projection of the unconscious
perception that the redeeming effect is constantly being
frustrated by the presence of an unredeemed element in
the unconscious. This unredeemed, undomesticated, un-
trained, or barbaric portion, which can only be held on
a chain and not yet allowed to run free, is projected upon
those who have never accepted Christianity. In reality,
of course, it is an element in ourselves, which has always
contrived to escape the Christian process of domestication.
An unconscious perception of this resistant element,
whose existence one would like to disavow, is certainly
present — hence the projection. Restlessness is a concrete
expression of this unredeemed state. The unredeemed
element at once monopolizes the new light and the energy
of the new symbol. This is another way of expressing
the same thing that we have already indicated above when
describing the effect of the symbol upon the collective
psyche. The symbol intrigues all the repressed and
unrecognised contents, as instanced by the ‘guardians
of the market-place’; similarly with Hiphil-Hophal, who,
because of his unconscious resistance against his own
religion, immediately brings out and emphasizes the
ungodliness and sensuality of the new symbol. The affect
displayed in the rejection corresponds with the amount of
repressed libido. It is in the moral degradation of the
pure gift of heaven in the sultry phantasy-loom of these
minds that the ritual-murder is accomplished. The appear-
ance of the symbol has, nevertheless, had its benign
effect Although not accepted in its pure form, it was
greedily devoured by the archaic, undifferentiated forces,
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
333
wherein conscious morality and aesthetic values continued
to co-operate. Here the enantiodromia begins, the con-
version of the hitherto valued into the worthless, the
changing of the former good into the bad.
The realm of the good, whose king is Epimetheus, had
lived in age-long enmity with the kingdom of Behemoth.
Behemoth and Leviathan 1 are the two familiar monsters
of God from the book of Job ; they are the symbolical
expression of His force and power. As crude animal
symbols they portray psychologically allied forces in
human nature A Thus Jehovah says : (Job , XI., 15 ff.)
“ Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee ;
Lo now, his strength is in his loins.
And his force is in the muscles of his belly.
He moveth his tail like a cedar :
And the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.*
He is the beginning of the ways of God."
One must read these words attentively : this force is u the
beginning of the ways of God”, i.e. of Jehovah, the Jewish
God, who in the New Testament lays aside this form.
There He is no longer the Nature-God. This means,
psychologically, that this crude instinctive side of the
libido accumulated in the unconscious is permanently held
under in the Christian attitude ; thus the divine half of
the libido is repressed, or written down to man’s debit
account, and in the last resort is assigned to the domain of
the devil Hence, when the unconscious force begins to
well up, when “ the ways of God ” begin, God comes in the
shape of Behemoth 4
One might say with equal truth that God presents
1 Spitteler, l.c., p. 179.
* Cf. Psych . of the Unconscious , p. 70.
* The Vulgate actually reads : nervi testiculorum ejus perplexi
sunt. Spitteler makes Astarte the daughter of Behemoth — signi-
ficantly enough.
4 One may compare this with Flournoy : Una mystique modems
{Arch, de Psych., xv, 1915)*
334
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
himself in the Devil’s shape. But these moral valuations
are optical delusions : the force of life is beyond the moral
judgment Meister Eckehart says :
“ Said I therefore God is good : it is not true, I am good, God
is not good 1 I go still further : I am better than God ! For
only what is good can be better, and only what can become
better can become the best. God is not good — therefore can He
not be better ; and, because not better, neither can He be best.
Far away from God are these three conditions * good 1 better \
* best \ He standeth above them all.” — Bttttner, vol. i, p. 165
The immediate effect of the redeeming symbol is
the reconciliation of the pairs of opposites: thus the
ideal realm of Epimetheus becomes reconciled with the
kingdom of Behemoth, i.e. moral consciousness enters into
a dangerous alliance with the unconscious contents,
together with the libido belonging to, or identical with,
these contents.
Now the children of God have been entrusted to the
care of Epimetheus, namely those highest Goods of
mankind, without which man is a mere animal. Through
the reconciliation with his own unconscious opposite, the
menace of disaster, flooding and devastation descend upon
him, t\e. the values of the conscious are liable to become
swamped in the energic values of the unconscious. If
that image of natural beauty and morality had been
really accepted and valued, instead of serving, merely
by virtue of its innocent naturalness, as an incitement
to all the filthiness hiding in the background of our
“ moral M civilization, then, notwithstanding the pact with
Behemoth, the Divine children would never have been
jeopardized, for Epimetheus would always have been able
to discriminate between the valuable and the worthless.
But, because the symbol appears inacceptable to our
one-sided, rationalistic and therefore deformed, mentality,
every standard of value fails. When, in spite of all, the
reconciliation of the pairs of opposites transpires as a
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY .335
force majeure, the danger of inundation and disintegration
necessarily follows, and in a peculiarly characteristic way,
since the dangerous counter-tendencies get smuggled in
under the cloak of ‘correct ideas*. Even the evil and
pernicious can be rationalized and made aesthetic. Thus,
one after another, the Divine children are handed over
to Behemoth, ue. conscious values are exchanged for sheer
impulsiveness and stupidity. Conscious values are greedily
devoured by crude and barbarous tendencies which were
hitherto unconscious ; thus Behemoth and Leviathan
erect an invisible whale (the unconscious) as symbolizing
their principle, while the corresponding symbol of the
Epimethean kingdom is the bird . The whale, as denizen
of the sea, is the universal symbol of the devouring
unconscious 1 . The bird, as a citizen of the luminous
kingdom of the air, is a symbol of conscious thought;
it also symbolizes the ideal (wings) and the Holy Spirit
The final extinction of Good is prevented by the
intervention of Prometheus. He rescues Messias, the
last of the sons of God, out of the power of his enemy.
Messias becomes the heir to the Divine kingdom, while
Prometheus and Epimetheus, the personifications of the
severed opposites, become united in the seclusion of their
“native valley”. Both are relieved of sovereignty —
Epimetheus, because he was forced to forgo it, and
Prometheus, because he never strove for it. Which means,
in psychological terms, that introversion and extraversion
cease to dominate as one-sided lines of direction, and
consequently the psychic dissociation also ceases. In their
stead a new function appears, symbolically represented
by a child named Messias, who had long lain asleep.
Messias is the mediator, the symbol of the new attitude
that shall reconcile the opposites. He is a child, a boy,
x, Abundant examples of this are to be found in Psychology oj the
Unconscious
336 THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN POETRY
the ‘puer aeternus 5 of the immemorial prototype, heralding
by his youth the resurrection and rebirth of what was
lost (Apokatastasis). That which Pandora brought to
earth as an image, and being rejected by men became
the cause of their undoing, is fulfilled in Messias. This
association of symbols corresponds with a frequent ex-
perience in the practice of analytical psychology: a
symbol emerging in dreams is rejected for the very
reasons detailed above, and even affects a counter-reaction,
which corresponds with the invasion of Behemoth. The
result of this conflict is a simplification of the personality,
based upon individual characteristics which have been
present since birth ; this reintegration ensures the con-
nection of the matured personality with the energy-
sources of childhood. In this transition, as Spitteler
shows, there is a great danger that, instead of the symbol,
the archaic instincts thereby awakened shall become
rationalistically accepted and sheltered among established
views.
The English mystic William Blake says 1 : “ There
are two classes of men: the prolific* and the devouring 8 .
Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.”
With these words of Blake, which are a simple epitome
of the fundamental ideas of Spitteler and my elaborations
thereon, I would like to close this chapter. If I have
unduly expanded it, this came about, as in the discussion
of the Schiller letters, through a wish to do justice to the
profusion of ideas Spitteler awakens in his Prometheus and
Epimetheus . I have, as far as possible, confined myself
to the essentials ; indeed, I have deliberately omitted a
whole group of problems which would claim attention in
a full elaboration of this material.
i Poetical Works , i, p. 249.
* The prolific = the fruitful, who brings forth out of hhftgftjf ,
» The devonring=the man who swallows up and takes into
CHAPTER VI
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
We now come to the work of a psychiatrist who from
the bewildering multiplicity of so-called psychopathic states
attempted to bring two definite types into relief. This
very extensive group embraces all those psychopathic
border-line states which can no longer be included under
the heading of the psychoses proper — hence all the
neuroses and degenerative states, eg. intellectual, moral,
affective, and such like psychic inferiorities.
This attempt was made in 1902 by Otto Gross, who
published a theoretical study entitled Die zerebrale Sekun -
darfunktion , and it was the basic hypothesis of this work
that prompted him to the conception of two psychological
types 1 . Although the empirical material treated by
Gross is taken from the domain of psychic inferiority,
this is no reason why the points of view thus obtained
should not be transferred to the wider regions of normal
psychology; since the unbalanced psychic state affords
the investigator a very favourable opportunity of gaining
an almost exaggeratedly distinct view of certain psychic
phenomena, which are often only dimly perceptible within
the boundaries of the normal. Occasionally the abnormal
condition has the effect of a magnifying glass. As we
shall soon see, Gross himself, in his final chapter, also
extends his conclusions to the wider terrain.
By " secondary function ” Gross understands a cerebral
1 Gross also gives a revised though essentially unaltered presenta-
tion of the types in his book XJeber psychopaihologisohe MinderwerHg -
keiUn, pp. 27 ff. (Braumuller, Vienna 1909)
887
M
338
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
cell-process that comes into action after the “primary
function ” has already taken place. The primary function
would correspond to the actual performance of the cells,
viz. the production of a positive psychic process, let us
say, a representation. This performance represents an
energic process, presumably, the release of a chemical
tension, i.e. a chemical decomposition. In the wake of
this sudden discharge, termed by Gross the primary
function, the secondary function begins. It represents,
therefore, a restitution, a rebuilding by means of assimila-
tion. This function will occupy a shorter or longer interval
in proportion to the intensity of the preceding expenditure
of energy. During such time the cell, as compared with
its former condition, is in an altered state ; viz . a state of
stimulation, which cannot be without influence upon the
further psychic process. Processes that are especially
highly-toned and loaded with affect must entail an increased
expenditure of energy, hence a definitely prolonged period
of restitution or secondary function. The effect of the
secondary function upon the psychic process is considered
by Gross to be a specific and demonstrable influencing of
the subsequent association sequence, with the particular
effect of restricting the choice of associations to the * thema ’
represented in the primary function, the so-called ‘leading
idea*. Not long after, as a matter of fact, I was able to
show in my own experimental work (as likewise several
of my pupils in corresponding investigations) phenomena of
perseveration 1 following ideas with a high feeling-tone.
These phenomena are accessible to mathematical proof.
My pupil Dr Eberschweiler, in an investigation of speech-
phenomena, has demonstrated this same phenomenon in
assonances and agglutinations 2 . Furthermore, we know
i Jung, Studies in Word-Association.
* Eberschweiler, Untersuchungen ueber die sprachliche Komponente
dor Association (Inaug. Diss. Zurich) 1908 (AUg. Zeitschr.f. Psychiatric ,
190S)
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY 339
from pathological experience how frequently perseverations
occur in severe brain-lesions, eg. apoplexies, tumours,
atrophic and other degenerative conditions. These may
well be ascribed to this impeded restitution-process. Thus
Gross’ hypothesis has a good share of probability. It is
only natural, therefore, to raise the question whether there
may not be individuals, or even types, in whom the
restitution period, the secondary function, persists longer
than in others, and, if so, whether certain peculiar psycho-
logies may not eventually be traceable to this. A brief
secondary function, clearly, influences fewer consecutive
associations in a given length of time than a long one.
Hence, in the former case, the primary function can occur
much more frequently. The psychological picture, in such
a case, would show a constant and rapidly renewed readi-
ness for action and reaction, hence a kind of capacity for
deviation, a tendency to a superficiality of associative
connections, and a lack of the deeper, more integrated
connections, a certain incoherence, therefore, in so far as
significance is expected of the association. On the other
hand many new themata crowd up in the unit of time,
though not at all deeply engaged or clearly focussed ; so
that heterogeneous ideas of varying values appear, as it
were, on the same niveau, thus giving an impression of
a “levelling of ideas” (Wernicke). This rapid succession
of ideas in the primary function excludes any real
experience of the affective value of the thema per se ; hence
the affectivity cannot be anything but superficial But, at
the same time, rapid adaptations and changes of attitude
are thereby rendered possible. The real intellectual
process — or, better still, abstraction — naturally suffers from
the abbreviation of the secondary function, since the
process of abstraction demands a sustained contemplation
of several initial ideas plus their after-effects, and therefore
a longer secondary function. Without this, no intensifies-
340 TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
tion and abstraction of an idea or of a group of ideas can
take place.
The more rapid recovery of the primary function
produces a higher * riagibiliUj not of course in the
intensive, but in the extensive, sense; hence it provides
a prompt grasp of the immediate present, though only of
its surface, not of its deeper meaning. From this circum-
stance we may easily gain the impression of an uncritical
or open-minded disposition, as the case may be ; we are
struck by a certain compliancy and understanding, or we
may find an unintelligible inconsiderateness, a crude
tactlessness, or even brutality. That too facile gliding
over the deeper meanings gives the impression of a certain
blindness for everything not immediately transparent or
superficial The quick ‘ r6agibilit £ 9 also has the appearance
of so-called presence of mind, of audacity even to the
point of foolhardiness; thus, besides a lack of criticism,
it also suggests an inability to realize danger. His
rapidity of action looks like decisiveness ; it is more often
blind impulse. His encroachment upon another’s province
is almost a matter of course; this is facilitated by his
ignorance of the emotional value of an idea or action, and
its effect upon his fellow-men. As a result of the rapid
restoration of the state of readiness, the elaboration of
perceptions and experiences is disturbed; accordingly
memory is seriously handicapped, since, as a rule, only
those associations are accessible to immediate reproduc-
tion, with which abundant connections are engaged.
Relatively isolated contents are quickly submerged; for
which reason it is infinitely more difficult to retain a
series of meaningless (incoherent) words than a poem.
Quick inflammability, rapidly fading enthusiasms, are
further characteristics of this type. There is also a certain
want of taste, which arises from the too rapid succession
of heterogeneous contents with a non-realization of their
34 *
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
different emotional values. His thinking has a repre-
sentative character; it tends more towards a quick
presentation and orderly arrangement of contents than
towards abstraction and synthesis.
In this outline of the type with the shorter secondary
function I have substantially followed Gross, with the
addition of a few transcriptions into the normal. Gross
calls this type : inferiority with shallow co nscio us ne ss But
if the too unmitigated traits are toned down to a normal
level, we get a general picture, in which the reader will
again easily recognize the less emotional type of Jordan,
in other words, the extrovert. Full acknowledgment is
due to Gross, since he was the first to establish a uniform
and simple hypothesis for the production of this type.
The type opposed to it is termed by Gross: inferiority
with contracted consciousness. In this type the secondary
function is particularly intensive and prolonged. By its
prolongation, consecutive association is inflnpr ir ed to a
greater extent than in the type mentioned above.
Obviously, we may also assume an accentuated primary
function in this case, and, therefore, a more extensive
and complete cell performance than with the extravert.
A prolonged and reinforced secondary function would be
the natural consequence of this. The prolonged secondary
function causes a longer duration of the effect stimulated
by the initial idea. From this we get what Gross terms
a “contractive effect,” namely a specially directed choice
(in the sense of the initial idea) of consecutive gogr./~; a t t ‘ nn ^
An extensive realization, or ‘approfondissement’, of the
‘thema’, is thereby obtained. The idea has an enduring
effect; the impression goes deep. One disadvantage of
this is a certain limitation within a narrow range, whereby
thinking suffers both in variety and abundance. Synthesis,
notwithstanding, is essentially assisted, since the elements
to be composed remain constellated long enough to render
342 TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
their abstraction possible. Moreover, this restriction to
one thema undoubtedly effects an enrichment of the
relevant associations and a firm inner cohesion and in-
tegration of the complex ; at the same time, however, the
complex is shut off from all extraneous material and thus
attains an associative isolation, a phenomenon which Gross
(in support of Wernicke’s concept) terms “ sejunction.”
A result of the sejunction of the complex is an accumula-
tion of groups of ideas (or complexes), which have no
mutual connection or only quite a loose one. Outwardly
such a condition reveals itself as a disharmonious, or, as
Gross 1 calls it, a “ sejunctive ” personality.
The isolated complexes exist side by side without any
reciprocal influence : accordingly they do not interpene-
trate, mutually levelling and correcting each other. In
themselves, they are strictly and logically integrated, but
they are deprived of the correcting influence of differently
orientated complexes. Hence it may easily come about
that an especially strong, and therefore particularly shut-
off and uninfluenced complex, becomes an c< excessively
valued idea,” ue. it becomes a dominant, defying every
criticism and enjoying complete autonomy, until finally
it comes to be an uncontrollable factor, in other words,
c spleen/ In pathological cases we find it as a compulsive
or paranoic idea, ue . it becomes an absolutely insurmount-
able factor, coercing the whole life of the individual into
its service. As a result, the entire mentality becomes
differently orientated, the standpoint becomes * deranged.’
From this conception of the genesis of a paranoic idea
the fact might also be explained that, in certain incipient
i In another place ( Psychopath . Minderw ., p. 41) Gross draws a
distinction, rightly in my view, between the “ overvalued idea ” and
the so-called “ complex with commanding value For the latter is
characteristic not only of this type, as Gross thinks, but also of the
other. The “ conflict ” complex has always considerable value by
virtue of its accentuated feeling tone, no matter in which type it may
appear.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
343
conditions, the paranoic idea can be corrected by means
of an appropriate psychotherapeutic procedure; namely,
when the latter succeeds in combining it with other
broadening and therefore correcting complexes . 1 There
is also an undoubted wariness, even anxiety, connected
with the re-integration of severed complexes. The things
must remain cleanly sundered, the bridges between the
complexes must be, as far as possible, broken down by
a strict and rigid formulation of the complex content.
Gross calls this tendency “ association fear” 2 .
The strict inner seclusiveness of such a complex
hampers every attempt at external influence. Such an
attempt has a prospect of success only when it succeeds
in combining either the premises or the conclusion of the
complex, just as strictly and logically with another
complex as they are themselves mutually bound. The ac-
cumulation of insufficiently connected complexes naturally
effects a rigid seclusion from the outer world, and, as we
would say, a powerful heaping-up of libido within. Hence,
we’ regularly find an extraordinary concentration upon the
inner processes, directed, in accordance with the nature
of the subject, either upon physical sensations in one
preferentially orientated by sensation, or upon mental
processes in the more intellectual subject. The personality
seems arrested, absorbed, dispersed, ‘sunk in thought 1 ,
intellectually one-sided, or hypochondriacal In every
case there is only a meagre participation in external life,
and a distinct inclination to an unsociable and solitary
existence, which often finds compensation in a special
love for plants or animals.
The inner processes enjoy a heightened activity, because
from time to time complexes which hitherto had only a
i Cf . P. Bjerre : Zur Radikalbehandlung dev chronischen Paranoia,
( Jdhrbuch fiir psychoanal. Forschungen , Bd. iii, pp. 795 if.)
* Psychopath . Minderw p. 40.
344
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
slight connection, or even none at all, suddenly collide;
this again gives rise to an intensive primary function
which, in its turn, releases a long secondary function that
amalgamates the two complexes. One might imagine
that all the complexes would at some time or other collide
in this way, thus producing a general uniformity and
integration of psychic contents. Naturally, this wholesome
result could take place only if in the meantime one were
to arrest all change in the external life. But, since this
is impossible, fresh stimuli are continually arriving and
making new secondary functions, which intersect and
confuse the inner lines. Consequently this type has a
decided tendency to hold external stimuli at a distance,
to keep out of the path of change, to maintain life when
possible, in its constant daily stream, until* every interior
amalgamation shall have been effected. In a diseased
subject, this tendency is also clearly in evidence ; he gets
away from people as far as possible and endeavours to
lead the life of a recluse. Only in slight cases, however,
will the remedy be found in this way. In all the more
severe cases there is nothing for it but to reduce the
intensity of the primary function ; which problem, however
is a chapter in itself, and one which we have already
attacked in the discussion of the Schiller letters.
It is now clear that this type is distinguished by quite
definite affect-phenomena* We have already seen how the
subject realizes the associations belonging to the initial
presentation. He carries out a full and coherent associa-
tion of the material relevant to the thema, in so far, that
is, as there is no question of material already linked up
with another complex. When a stimulus hits upon such
material, t.e. upon a complex, the result is either a violent
reaction and an affective explosion, or, when the isolation
of the complex precludes all contact, entirely negative.
But, when realization takes place, all the affective values
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
345
are released ; a powerful emotional reaction occurs, which
leaves a long after-effect. Frequently this remains out-
wardly unobserved, but actually it bores in all the deeper.
These reverberations of the affect engross the individual’s
attention, incapacitating him from receiving new stimuli
until the affect has faded away. An accumulation of
stimuli becomes unbearable, whence violent defence-
reactions appear. Wherever a strong complex accumula-
tion occurs, a chronic attitude of defence usually develops,
which may proceed to general distrust, and in pathological
cases to delusions of persecution.
Sudden affective explosions, alternating with taciturnity
and defence, often give such a bizarre appearance to the
personality that these persons become quite enigmatic to
their entourage. Their impaired readiness, due to inner
absorption, leaves them deficient whenever presence of
mind or promptness of action is demanded. Accordingly,
embarrassing situations frequently occur for which no
remedy is at hand — one reason the more for a further
seclusion from company. Through the occasional ex-
plosions confusion is created in one’s relations to others,
and the very presence of this perplexity and embarrass-
ment incapacitates one from restoring one’s relations,
upon the right lines.
This faulty adaptation leads to a series of un-
toward experiences, which unfailingly beget a feeling of
inferiority or bitterness, if not of actual animosity, that
is readily directed against those who were actually or
ostensibly the originators of one’s misfortune. The affec-
tive inner life is very intense, and the manifold emotional
reverberations develop an extremely ’ fine gradation and
perception of feeling tones; there is a peculiar emotional
sensibility, revealing itself to the outer world in a peculiar
timidity and uneasiness in the presence of emotional
stimuli, or before every situation where such impressions
34*
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
might be possible. This touchiness, or irritation, is
specifically directed against the emotional conditions of
the environment Hence, from brusque expressions of
opinion, assertions charged with affect, attempts to
influence feeling etc., there is an immediate and instinctive
defence, proceeding, of course, from this very fear of the
subject’s own emotion, which might again release a rever-
berating impression whose force might overmaster him.
From such sensitiveness time may well develop a
certain melancholy, due to a sense of being shut off from
life. In another place 1 “melancholy” is mentioned by
Gross as a special characteristic of this type. In the same
passage he also points out that the realization of the
affective value easily leads to excessive emotional valua-
tion, or to 1 taking things too seriously \
The strong relief given in this picture to the inner
processes and the emotional life at once reveals the intro-
vert The description given by Gross is much fuller than
Jordan’s outline of the “ impassioned type ”, which must,
however, in its main characters be identical with the type
pictured by Gross.
In Chapter V of his work Gross observes that, within
normal limits both the inferiority types he describes
present physiological differences of individuality. The
shallow extensive or the narrow intensive consciousness
is, therefore, distinctive of the whole character* Accord-
ing to Gross, the type of extensive consciousness is pre-
ferably practical, because of his quick adaptation to the
environment. The inner life does not predominate, since
it has no great part to play in the formation of great idea-
complexes. “ They are energetic propagandists for their
own personality, and, on a higher level, they also work
for the great ideas already handed down .” 8 Gross asserts
1 Gross, TJeber psychopathologische Minderweriigkeiten.
* Lc., p. 59. * Cf. the similar testimony of Jordan.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
347
that the feeling life of this type is primitive ; though in
the higher representatives it becomes organized “ through
the taking over of ready-made ideals from without” His
activity, therefore, with respect to the feeling life can (as
Gross says) become heroic. “Yet it is always banal”.
“ Heroic ” and “ banal ” scarcely seem compatible attributes.
But Gross shows us at once what he means : in this type
there is not a sufficiently rich or developed connection
between the erotic complex and the remaining conscious
content, i.e. with the remaining complexes, aesthetical,
ethical, philosophical, and religious. At this point Freud
would speak of the repression of the erotic element. The
distinct presence of this connection is regarded by Gross
as a “true sign of the superior nature” (p. 61). For the
sound formation of this connection a prolonged secondary
function is indispensable, since only through the “ appro-
fondissement ” and prolonged consciousness of the necessary
elements can such a synthesis be brought about. Sexuality
can certainly be pressed into the paths of social utility,
through the agency of accepted ideals, but it “never
mounts above the limits of triviality”. This somewhat
harsh judgment relates to a circumstance rendered easily
intelligible in the light of the extraverted character : the
extravert is exclusively orientated by* external data, and
it is always his pre-occupation with these wherein the
principal bias of his psychic activity lies. Hence he has
nothing at his command for the ordering of his inner
affairs. They have to be subordinated, as a matter of
course, to determinants accepted from without Under
such circumstances, no true connection between the more
highly and the less developed functions can take place,
for this demands a great expense of time and trouble;
it is a lengthy and difficult labour of self-education which
cannot possibly be achieved without introversion. But
for this, the extravert lacks both time and inclination ;
34« TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
moreover, were he so inclined, he is hampered by that
same avowed distrust with which he envisages his inner
world, or the introvert the outer world.
One should not imagine, however, that the introvert,
thanks to his greater synthetic capacity and his greater
ability for the realization of affective values, is thereby
immediately fitted to carry out the synthesis of his own
individuality, i.e. to establish once and for all a harmonious
association between the higher and lower functions. I
prefer this formulation to Gross’ conception, which holds
that the sole question is one of sexuality; since, in my
view, it is not purely a question of sexuality, but of other
instincts as well. Sexuality is, of course, a very frequent
form of expression for undomesticated, raw instincts ; but
the struggle for power in all its manifold aspects is an
equally crude instinctive expression.
Gross has invented the expression “ sejunctive person-
ality ” for the introvert, by which, he singles out the peculiar
difficulty with which this type obtains any cohesion or
connection between his severed complexes. The synthetic
capacity of the introvert merely serves to build complexes,
as far as possible, isolated from each other. But such
complexes are a direct hindrance to the development of
a higher unity. Thus, in the introvert also, the complex
of sexuality, or the egotistical striving for power, or the
search for enjoyment, remains as far as possible isolated
and sharply divorced from other complexes. For example,
I remember an introverted and highly intellectual neurotic,
who wasted his time alternating between the loftiest
flights of transcendental idealism and the most squalid
suburban brothels, without any conscious admission of
the existence of a moral or aesthetic conflict The two
things were utterly distinct as though belonging to
different spheres. The result, naturally, was an acute
compulsion neurosis.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY 349
We must bear this criticism in mind when following
Gross’ elaboration of the type with intensive consciousness.
Deepened consciousness is, as Gross says, “ the basis for
the deepening of individuality”. As a consequence of
the strong contractive effect, external stimuli are always
regarded from the standpoint of an idea. In place of the
instinct for practical life in so called reality, there is an
impelling tendency to * approfondissement ’. “ Things are
not conceived as individual phenomena, but as partial
ideas or constituents of the great idea-complex”. This
conception of Gross accurately coincides with our former
reflection k propos the discussion of the nominalistic and
realistic standpoints with their antecedent representatives
in the Platonic, Megaric, and Cynic schools. In the light
of Gross’ conception one may easily discern wherein the
difference between the two standpoints exists: the man
with the short secondary function has in a unit of time
many, and only loosely connected, primary functions;
hence, he is especially held by the individual phenomenon
and the individual case. For such a man the universalia
are only nomina and are deprived of reality ; whereas for
the man with a long secondary function the inner facts,
abstracta, ideas, or universalia, are always in the fore-
ground ; they are to him the real and actual, to which he
must relate all individual phenomena. He is, therefore, by
nature a realist (in the scholastic sense). Since, for the
introvert, manner of thinking always takes predecence over
perception of externals, he is inclined to be a relativist
(Gross, p. 63). Harmony in his surroundings gives him
especial pleasure (p. 64): it corresponds with his inner
pressure towards the harmonizing of his isolated com-
plexes. He shuns every sort of “ unrestrained demeanour ”,
for it might easily lead to disturbing stimuli (cases of
affect explosion must, of course, be excepted). Social
consideration, as a result of his absorption by inner
350
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
processes, is rather meagre. The strong predominance of
his own ideas does not favour an acceptance of the ideas
or ideals of others. The intense inner elaboration of the
complexes gives them a pronounced individual character.
“The feeling-life is frequently unserviceable socially, but
is always individual ” (p. 65).
This statement of the author must be submitted to
searching criticism, for it contains a problem which, in
my experience, always gives occasion for the greatest
misunderstandings between the types. The introverted
intellectual, whom Gross clearly has here in mind, though
outwardly showing as little feeling as possible, manifests
logically correct views and actions, not least because in
the first place he has a natural distaste for any parade
of feeling, and secondly because he is fearful lest by
incorrect behaviour he should excite disturbing stimuli,
ie. the affects of his fellow-men. He is fearful of dis-
agreeable affects in others, because he credits others with
his own sensitiveness ; furthermore, he has always been
distressed by the quickness and apparent fitfulness of
the extravert. He represses his feeling; hence in his
inner depths it occasionally swells to passion, when only
too clearly he perceives it His tormenting emotions are
well known to him. He compares them with the feelings
shown by others, principally, of course, with those of the
extraverted feeling type, and he finds that his "feelings”
are quite different from those of other men. Hence he
embraces the idea that his “feelings” (or, more correctly,
emotions) are unique, t.e. individual.
It is natural that they should differ from the feelings
of the extraverted feeling type, since the latter are a
differentiated instrument of adaptation, and are wanting,
therefore in the “genuine passionateness” which char-
acterizes the deeper feelings of the introverted thinlring
type. But passion, as an elemental, instinctive force,
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
3 5 *
possesses little that is individual — rather is it common
to all men. Only what is differentiated can be individual
Hence, in the deepest affects, the distinctions of type are
at once obliterated in favour of the universal “ all too
human”. In my view, the extraverted feeling type has
really the chief claim to individualized feeling, because
his feelings are differentiated; but where his thinking is
concerned, he falls into a similar delusion. He has
thoughts which torment him. He compares them with
the ideas expressed in the world about him, i.e. ideas
largely derived in the first place from the introverted
thinking type. He discovers his thoughts have little in
common with these ideas ; he may therefore regard them
as individual and himself, perhaps, as an original thinker,
or he may repress his thoughts altogether, since no-one
else thinks the same. In reality, however, his thoughts
are common to all the world, although but seldom uttered.
In my view, therefore, Gross* statement mentioned above
springs from a subjective deception, which, however, is
also the general rule.
"The increased contractive power enables an absorption
in things, to which an immediate vital interest is no longer
attached (Gross, p. 65). Here Gross lights upon an
essential trait of the introverted mentality: the introvert
delights in developing ideas for their own ' sake, quite
apart from all external reality. Herein lies both a
superiority and a danger. It is a great advantage to
be able to develop an idea in an abstract sphere, where
sense no longer intervenes. But there is a danger lest
the train of thought should become removed from every
practical application, and its value for life be proportion-
ately diminished. Hence the introvert is always some-
what in danger of getting too remote from life, and of
viewing things too much from their symbolical aspect.
Gross also lays stress upon this character. The extravert,
35 *
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
however, is in no better plight, only for him matters are
rather different He has the capacity so to curtail his
secondary function that he experiences almost nothing
but the positive primary function, z.e. he no longer remains
anchored to anything, but flies above reality in a sort
of frenzy; things are no longer seen and realized, but
are merely used as stimulants. This capacity has a great
advantage, for it enables one to manoeuvre oneself out
of many difficult situations (“Lost art thou, when thou
thinkest of danger”, Nietzsche); but it is also a great
disadvantage, and catastrophe is its almost inevitable
outcome, so often does it lead one into inextricable chaos.
From the extraverted type Gross produces the so-called
civilizing genius, and the so-called cultural genius from the
introverted. The former corresponds with “ practical
achievement”, the latter with “abstract invention”. In
conclusion Gross expresses his conviction “that our age
stands in especial need of the contracted, intensified con-
sciousness, in contrast to former ages where consciousness
was shallower and more extensive” (pp. 68 ff.) “ We delight
in the ideal, the profound, the symbolical Through
simplicity to harmony, this is the art of the highest
culture”.
Gross wrote this, to be sure, in the year 1902. And
how is it now? If we were to express any opinion at all ;
we must confess that we manifestly need both civilization
and culture, a shortening of the secondary function for the
one, and a prolongation for the other. For we cannot
create the one without the other, and we are, unhappily,
bound to admit that in humanity to-day there is a lack
on either side. Or, let us say, where one is in excess,
the other is deficient; thus to express ourselves more
guardedly; for the continual harping upon progress has
become untrustworthy and is under suspicion.
In summing up, I would observe that the views of Gross
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
353
coincide substantially with my own. Even my terms extra*
version and introversion are justified from the standpoint
of Gross’ conception. It only remains for us to make a
critical examination of Gross’ basic hypothesis, the concept
of the secondary function.
It is always a delicate matter, this framing of physio-
logical or t organic’ hypotheses in connection with psycho-
logical processes. It will be familiar that, at the time
of the great successes of brain research, a kind of mania
prevailedfor fabricatingphysiological hypotheses for psycho-
logical processes ; among these, the hypothesis that the
cell-processes withdrew during sleep is by no means the
most absurd which received serious appreciation and
* scientific ” discussion. One was justified in speaking of a
veritable brain-mythology ; but I have no desire to treat
Gross’ hypothesis as a “brain myth”, — its working value
is too important for that. It is an excellent working
hypothesis, which has received repeated and well deserved
acknowledgment from other quarters.
The idea of the secondary function is as simple as
it is ingenious. This simple concept enables one to bring
a very large number of complex psychic phenomena into
a satisfying formula ; it deals, moreover, with phenomena
whose diverse nature would have successfully withstood
a simple reduction and classification by any other single
hypothesis. With such a fortunate hypothesis one is
always tempted to overestimate its range and application.
Such a possibility might well apply in this case, although
in fact, this hypothesis has unfortunately but limited
range. Let us entirely disregard the fact that in itself
the hypothesis is only a postulate, since no one has ever
seen the secondary function of the brain-cells, and no one
could ever demonstrate why, theoretically, the secondary
function should, qualitatively have the same contractive
effect upon the next associations as the primary function,
354
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
which, according to its definition, is essentially different
from the secondary function. There is a further circum-
stance which in my opinion carries even greater weight :
viz. in one and the same individual the habits of the
psychological attitude can alter in a very short space of
time. If the duration of the secondary function is of a
physiological or organic character, it must surely be
regarded as more or less permanent It is not to be
expected, then, that the duration of the secondary function
should suddenly change; such changes are never found
in a physiological or organic character, pathological
changes, of course, excepted. But, as I have already
emphasized more than once, introversion and extraversion
are not characters at all, but mechanisms , which can, as
it were, be inserted or disconnected at will. Only
from their habitual predominance do the corresponding
characters develop. There is an undoubted predilection
depending upon a certain inborn disposition, which, how-
ever, is not always absolutely decisive for one or other
mechanism. I have frequently found milieu influences
to be almost equally important. On one occasion a
case actually came within my own experience, in which
a man who had presented a marked extraverted de-
meanour, while living in the closest proximity to an
introvert, changed his attitude and became quite intro-
verted when subsequently closely involved with a pro*
nounced extraverted personality.
I have repeatedly observed in what a short space of
time certain personal influences effect an essential altera-
tion in the duration of the secondary function, even in a
well-defined type, and how the former condition becomes
re-established with the disappearance of the foreign
influence. With such experiences in view, we should, I
think, direct our interest more to the constitution of the
primary function. Gross himself lays stress upon the
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
355
special prolongation of the secondary function after strong
affects 1 , thus bringing the secondary function into a
dependent relation upon the primary function.
There exists, in fact, no sort of plausible ground why
the theory of types should be based upon the duration of
the secondary function ; it might conceivably be grounded
equally well upon the intensity of the primary function ,
since the duration of the secondary function is obviously
dependent upon the intensity of energy-consumption and
cell-performance. We might naturally rejoin that the
duration of the secondary function depends upon the
rapidity of restoration, and that there may be individuals
with a specially prompt cerebral assimilation, as opposed
to others who are less favoured. If this were the case,
the brain of the extravert must possess a higher restitution
capacity than that of the introvert. To such a very
improbable assumption every basis of proof is lacking.
What is known to us of the actual causes of the prolonged
secondary function is limited to the fact that, leaving
pathological conditions on one side, the special intensity
of the primary function effects, quite logically, a prolonga-
tion of the secondary function. Hence, in accordance
with this fact, the real problem would lie with the primary
function and might be resolved into the question, whence
comes it that in one the primary function is as a rule
intensive, while in another it is weak ? If we must shift
the problem upon the primary function, we have under-
taken to explain the varying intensity, and the manifestly
rapid alteration of intensity of the primary function. It
is my belief that this is an energic phenomenon, dependent
upon a general attitude.
The intensity of the primary function seems to be
directly related to the degree of tension involved in the
1 l.c., p. 12. Also in Gross* book : Ueber pathologisehe Minder-
werHgkeiUn , p. 30, and p. 37.
356
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
state of readiness. Where a large amount of psychic
tension is present, the primary function will also have a
special intensity, with corresponding results. When with
increasing fatigue tension diminishes, a tendency to
deviation and a superficiality of association appear, pro-
ceeding to ‘flight of ideas'; a condition, in fact, which is
characterized by a weak primary and short secondary
function. The general psychic tension (apart from physio-
logical causes, such as relaxation, etc.) is dependent upon
extremely complex factors, such as mood, attention,
expectation, etc., i.e. upon judgments of value, which in
their turn are again resultants of all the antecedent psychic
processes. By these, of course, I do not understand
logical judgments only, but also feeling judgments.
Technically, we should express the general tension in the
energic sense as libido^ while, in the psychological sense
relating to consciousness , , we should refer to it as value. The
intensive process is 4 charged with libido ' ; in other words,
it is a manifestation of libido, a high-tension energic
process. The intensive process is a psychological value*
hence the associative combinations proceeding from it are
termed valuable, , as opposed to those which are the result
of slight contractive effect — these we describe as worthless
or superficial.
The tense attitude is essentially characteristic only for
the introvert, while the relaxed, \ easy attitude denotes the
extravert 1 , apart, of course, from exceptional conditions.
Exceptions, however, are frequent even in one and the
same individual. Give the introvert a thoroughly congenial,
harmonious milieu, and he relaxes and expands to complete
extraversion, until one begins to wonder whether one may
not be dealing with an extravert. But transfer the extra-
vert into a dark and silent chamber, where every repressed
1 This tension or relaxation can occasionally be demonstrated
even in the tone of the musculature. Usually one can see it expressed
in the face.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN PSYCHIATRY
357
complex can gnaw at him, and he will be reduced to a
state of tension, in which the faintest stimulus becomes
a poignant realization. The changing situations of life
can have a similar effect momentarily reversing the type ;
but the preferential attitude is not, as a rule, permanently
altered, i.e. in spite of occasional extraversion the introvert
remains what he was before, and the extravert likewise.
To sum up: the primary function is, in my view,
more important than the secondary. The intensity
of the primary function is the decisive factor. It
depends upon the general psychic tension, i.e. upon the
sum of accumulated and disposable libido. The factor
that is conditioned by this accumulation is a complex
matter, and is the resultant of all the antecedent psychic
states. It may be characterized as mood, attention,
emotional state, expectation, etc. Introversion is dis-
tinguished by general tension, intensive primary function
and a correspondingly long secondary function. Extra-
version is characterized by general relaxation, weak
primary function, and a correspondingly short secondary
function.
CHAPTER VII
THE PROBLEM OF TYPICAL ATTITUDES IN ^ESTHETICS
It is, as it were, self-evident that every province of the
human mind that is either directly or indirectly concerned
with psychology should yield its contribution to the
question we are here discussing. Now that we have
listened to the philosopher, the poet, the physician, and
the observer of men, let us hear what the representative
of aesthetics has to say.
^Esthetics has to deal, not only with the aesthetic
nature of things, but also — and in perhaps even higher
degree — with the psychological question of the aesthetic
attitude. Not for long could such a fundamental pheno-
menon as the opposition of introversion and extraversion
escape the aesthetic standpoint, since the form and manner
in which art and beauty are sensed and regarded by
different individuals differ so widely that one could not
but be struck by this opposition. Disregarding the many,
more or less, sporadic and unique individual peculiarities
of attitude, there exist two contrasting basic forms, which
Worringer has described as ‘ feeling-into' (‘empathy*) 1
and * abstraction ** His definition of ‘feeling-into* is
derived principally from Lipps. For Lipps, feeling-into
is “the objectification of my quality into an object distinct
from myself, whether the quality objectified merits the
1 There exists, unfortunately, no English equivalent for Einf&hhmg .
Notwithstanding a certain unavoidable clumsiness such a term in-
volves, I have preferred the literal ' feeling-into * to a more manageable,
though inadequate rendering such as * empathy \ [Translator]
1 Worringer, AbstrakHon und EinfUhlung , 3rd ed., Munich 19x1.
868
TYPE-PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS
359
term ‘feeling* or not”. “While I am in the act of
apperceiving an object, I experience, as though in it or
issuing from it, as something apperceived and present in
it, an impetus towards a definite manner of inner behaviour.
This appears as given through it, as though imparted to
me by it 1 ” Jodi 2 interprets it as follows : “ The sensuous
appearance given by the artist is not merely an induce-
ment which brings to our mind kindred experiences by
the laws of association; but, since it is subordinated to
the universal laws of extemalization , 8 and appears as
something outside of ourselves, we also project into it
those inner processes which it reproduces in our minds.
We thereby give it (esthetic animation — an expression
which may be preferred to the term ‘ feeling-into ’ —
because, in this introjection of one's own inner state into
the picture, it is not feeling alone that is concerned, but
every sort of inner process.” By Wundt feeling-into is
reckoned among the elementary assimilation processes *
Feeling-into, therefore, is a kind of perception process,
distinguished by the fact that it transveys, through the
agency of feeling, an essential psychic content into the
object ; whereby the object is introjected. This content, by
virtue of its intimate relation with the subject, assimilates
the object to the subject, and so links it up with the
subject that the latter senses himself, so to speak, in the
object. The subject, however, does not feel himself into
the object, but the object felt into appears rather as
though it were animated and expressing itself of its own
accoird. This peculiarity depends upon the fact that the
i Lipps, Leitfadm der Psychologie, 2nd ed. 1906, p. 193.
* Jodi, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (1908), vol. ii, p. 436.
* By extemalization Jodi understands the localizing of the sense-
perception in space. We neither hear tones in the ear nor do we see
colours in the eye, but in the spatially localized object. vol. ii,
P- 247>*
« Wundt, Grundsdge dev physiologischen Psychologies 5th ed., vol. iii
p. 191.
360 TYPE-PROBLEM IN ESTHETICS
projection transfers an unconscious content into the object,
whence also the feeling-into process is termed transference
(Freud) in analytical psychology. Feeling-into , therefore , ,
is an extroversion. Worringer defines the aesthetic ex-
perience in feeling-into as follows : “ ^Esthetic enjoyment is
objectified pleasure in oneself ” (l.c. y p. 4). Consequently,
only that form is beautiful into which one can feel oneself.
Lipps says : “ Only so far as this feeling-into extends are
forms beautiful. Their beauty is simply: this my ideal
freely living itself out in them ” (. /Esthetik , p. 247). The
form into which one cannot feel oneself is, accordingly,
ugly. Herein is also involved the limitation of the feeling-
into theory, since there exist art-forms, as Worringer
points out, whose products do not correspond with the
attitude of feeling-into.
Specifically one might mention the oriental and exotic
art-forms as being of this nature. But, with us in the
west, long tradition has established ‘natural beauty and
truth to Nature* as the criterion of beauty in art, since
it is also the criterion and essential character of Graeco-
Roman and occidental art in general. (With the exception,
however, of certain medieval forms.)
For ages past our general attitude to art has been one
of feeling-into, and we can describe as beautiful only a
thing into which we can feel ourselves. If the artistic
form of the object is opposed to life, inorganic or abstract,
we cannot feel our life into it; whereas this naturally
always takes place when we have a feeling-into relationship
with the object (“What I feel myself into is life in
general ”, Lipps). We can feel ourselves only into organic
form — form that is true to Nature and has the will to live.
And yet another art-principle certainly exists, a style that
is opposed to life, that denies the will to live, that is
distinct from life, and yet makes a claim to beauty. When
artistic energy creates forms whose abstract inorganic
TYPE-PROBLEM IN iESTHEl ICS 361
quality is opposed to life, there can no longer be any
question of a creative will arising from the feeling-into
need ; rather is it a need to which feeling-into is directly
opposed — in other words, a tendency to suppress life.
“ The impidse to abstraction would seem to be this counter-
urge to the feeling-into need.” (Worringer, l.c., p. 16).
Concerning the psychology of this impulse to abstrac-
tion, Worringer says: “ What psychic suppositions are
there for the impulse to abstraction ? Among those peoples
where it exists we must look for them in their feeling
towards the world, in their psychic behaviour vis-i-vis the
cosmos. Whereas the feeling-into impulse is conditioned
by a happy, pantheistic, trustful relationship between man
and the phenomena of the outer world, the impulse to
abstraction is the result of a great inner uneasiness or
fear of these phenomena, and in the religious connection
corresponds with a strong transcendental colouring of
every idea. Such a state might be called an immense
spiritual agoraphobia. When Tibullus says ‘ primum in
mundo fecit deus timorem 9 (‘ The first thing God made
in the world was fear’), this very feeling of dread is
admitted as the primal root of artistic energy.”
This is literally true ; feeling-into does presuppose a
subjective attitude of readiness, or trustfulness vis- 4 -vis
the object It is a free movement of response, transveying
a subjective content into the object; thus producing a
subjective assimilation, which brings about a good under-
standing between subject and object, or at least simulates
it A passive object allows itself to be assimilated sub-
jectively, but in doing so its real qualities are in no way
altered ; although through the transference they may
become veiled or even, conceivably, violated. Through the
feeling-into process similarities and apparently common
qualities may be created which have no real existence
in themselves. It is quite understandable, therefore, that
362 TYPE-PROBLEM IN ESTHETICS
the possibility of another kind of aesthetic relation to the
object must also exist — an attitude, namely, that neither
responds nor advances to the object, but, on the contrary,
seeks to withdraw from it, and to ensure itself against any
influence on the part of the object by creating a subjective
psychic activity whose function it is to paralyse the effect
of the object
To a certain extent the feeling-in to attitude presupposes
an emptiness of the object, which can thereupon be imbued
with its own life. Abstraction, on the other hand, pre-
supposes a certain living and operating force on the part
of the object; hence it seeks to remove itself from the
object’s influence. Thus the abstracting attitude is centri-
petal, i.e. introverted. Worringer’s concept of abstraction,
therefore, corresponds with the introverted attitude. It is
significant that Worringer describes the influence of the
object in terms of fear or dread. Thus, the abstracting
attitude would have a posture vis-4-vis the object, suggest-
ing that the latter had a threatening quality, i.e. an
injurious or dangerous influence, against which it must
defend itself. Doubtless this apparently a priori quality
of the object is also a projection or transference, but a
transference of a .negative kind. We must, therefore,
assume that the act of abstraction is preceded by an
unconscious act of projection, in which negatively stressed
contents are transveyed to the object.
Since feeling-into, like abstraction, is a conscious act,
and since the latter is preceded by an unconscious pro-
jection, we may reasonably ask whether feeling-into may
not also be preceded by an unconscious act Since the
nature of feeling-into is a projection of subjective contents,
the antecedent unconscious act must be the opposite —
viz. a neutralizing of the object, i.e. making it inoperative
For by this means the object is, as it were, emptied, robbed
of spontaneity, and thereby made a suitable receptacle for
TYPE-PROBLEM IN .ESTHETICS 363
the subjective contents of the feeling-into individual. The
feeling-into subject seeks to feel his life into the object, to
experience in and through the object ; hence it is essential
that the independence of the object and the difference
between it and the subject be not too manifest Through
the unconscious act preceding the feeling-into process, the
independent power of the object is thus depotentiated or
over-compensated, because the subject forthwith uncon-
sciously superordinates himself to the object. But this
act of superordination can happen only unconsciously,
through an intensification of the importance of the subject.
This may happen through an unconscious phantasy, which
either deprives the object forthwith of its value and force,
or enhances the value of the subject placing him above the
object. Only by such means can that difference of potential
arise which the act of feeling-into demands for the subjective
contents to be transveyed into the object
The man with the abstracting attitude finds himself in
a terribly animated world, which seeks to overpower and
smother him; he therefore retires himself, so that in
himself he may contrive that redeeming formula which
can be relied upon to enhance his subjective value to a
point where at least it shall be a match for the influence
of the object The man with the feeling-into attitude finds
himself on the contrary, in a world that needs his subjective
feeling to give it life and soul. Confidingly he bestows
his animation upon it, while the abstracting individual
retreats mistrustingly before the daemons of objects, and
builds up a protective counterworld with abstract creations.
If we recall our argument of the preceding chapter,
we shall easily recognize the mechanism of extraversion
in the feeling-into attitude, and that of introversion in the
abstracting. “The great inner uneasiness occasioned by
the phenomena of the outer world” is nothing but the
stimulus-fear of the introvert, who, as a result of his deeper
364
TYPE-PROBLEM IN .ESTHETICS
sensibility and realization, has a real dread of too rapid or
too powerful changes of stimuli. Through the agency of the
general concept his abstractions also serve a most definite
aim ; viz. to confine the changing and irregular within law-
abiding limits. It is self-evident that this, at bottom magical,
procedure is to be found in fullest flower among the primi-
tives, whose geometrical signs are less valuable from the
standpoint of beauty’ than for their magical properties.
Of the orientals, Worringer rightly says : “ Tormented
by the confused combination and changing play of
external phenomena, such people were overtaken by an im-
mense need of repose. The possibility of happiness which
they sought in art consisted not so much in immersing
themselves in the things of the outer world and seeking
pleasure therein as in the raising of the individual thing
out of its arbitrary and seemingly accidental existence,
with a view to immortalizing it within the sphere of
abstract form: wherein to find a point of rest amid the
ceaseless stream of phenomena” p. 18).
“ These abstract, law-determined forms, therefore, are
not merely the highest, but indeed the only, forms wherein
man may find repose in face of the monstrous confusion
of the world spectacle ” (ic, p. 21).
As Worringer says, it is precisely the oriental religious
and art-forms which exhibit this abstracting attitude to
the world. To the oriental, therefore, the world in general
must appear very different from what it does to the
occidental, who animates his object with the feeling-into
attitude. To the oriental, the object is imbued with life
a priori and always tends to overwhelm him ; thus he with-
draws himself, in order to abstract his impressions from it
An illuminating insight into the oriental attitude is offered
by Buddha in the Fire-sermon , where he says :
“ All is in flames. The eye and all the senses stand in flames,
kindled by the fire of love, by the fire of hate, by the fire of dele-
TYPE-PROBLEM IN ^ESTHETICS 365
sion ; through birth, ageing and death, through pain and lamenta-
tions, through sorrow, suffering, and despair is the fire kindled. —
The whole world standeth in flames ; the whole world is wrapt
and shadowed in smoke ; the whole world is devoured by fire ;
the whole world quaketh.”
It is this fearful and sorrowful vision of the world that
forces the Buddhist into his abstracting attitude, as, indeed,
according to legend, Buddha also was brought to his life’s
quest through a similar impression of the world. The
dynamic animation of the object as the fons et origo of
abstraction is strikingly expressed in Buddha’s symbolic
language. This animation is not dependent upon feeling-
into, but corresponds rather with an a priori unconscious
projection — a projection actually existing from the begin-
ning. The term ‘ projection’ hardly seems qualified to
carry the real meaning of this phenomenon. Projection is
really an act that transpires, and not a condition existing
from the beginning, which is clearly what we are dealing
with here. It seems to me that L6vy-BruhTs concept
“participation mystique” is more descriptive of this
condition, seeking, as it does, to formulate the primordial
relationship of the primitive to his object For the
primitive, objects have a dynamic animation, charged, as
it were, with soul-stuff or soul-force (not absolutely soul-
endowed as is assumed by the animistic hypothesis), so
that they have an immediate psychic effect upon the man,
producing what is practically a dynamic identification
with the object Thus in certain primitive languages
objects of personal use have a gender denoting ‘alive’
(the suffix of the ‘thing living’). With the abstracting
attitude it is much the same, for here also the object has
an a priori animation and independence ; far from needing
any feeling-into on the part of the subject, the object
commands so strong an influence that introversion is
almost forced upon one. The powerful unconscious libido
36 6
TYPE-PROBLEM IN .ESTHETICS
charge of the object is dependent upon its “ participation
mystique” with the unconscious of the introverting subject
This is clearly implied in the words of Buddha ; the world-
fire is identical with the subject's libido-fire, the expression
of his burning passion, which, however, appears objective to
him, because it is not yet differentiated into a subjectively
disposable function.
Abstraction, then, seems to be a function which is at
war with the original state of "participation mystique”.
Its effort is to part from the object, thus to put >an end to
the object's tyrannical hold. Its effect is either to lead
to the creation of art forms, or to the cognition of the
object Similarly, the function of feeling-into is just as
effective as an organ of artistic creation as it is of cogni-
tion. But it can take place only upon a very different
basis from that of abstraction. For, just as the latter is
grounded upon the magical importance and power of the
object, feeling-into is rooted in the magical importance
of the subject, whereby the object is secured by means of
mystical identification. It is similar with the primitive, who,
on the one hand, is magically influenced by the power of
the fetish and at the same time, is also the magician, the
accumulator of magical power who dispenses potency to
the fetish. (Cf. the churinga rites of the Australians ) 1 .
The unconscious depotentiation of the object, which
results from the act of feeling into means also a permanent
more moderate valuation of the object For in this case
the unconscious contents of the feeling into subject are
identical with the object, thus making it appear inanimate*
For this reason feeling-into is necessary for the cognition
of the nature of the object One might speak in this case,
of a continually existing, unconscious abstraction which
i Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia
(London, 1904) ,
* Because the unconscious contents of the feeling-into subject are
themselves relatively inanimate.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS
367
presents the object as inanimate. For abstraction has
always this effect : it kills the independent activity of the
object, in so far as this is magically related to the psyche
of the subject. The abstracting attitude performs this
consciously, in order to protect itself from the magical
influence of the object. From the a priori inanimateness
of the object there likewise proceeds that relation of trust
which the feeling-into subject has towards the world;
there is nothing there that could inimically affect or
oppress him, since he alone dispenses life and soul to the
object, although to his conscious appreciation the converse
would seem to be true. But, to the man with the abstract-
ing attitude, the world is filled with powerfully operating
and therefore dangerous objects ; these inspire him with
fear, and with a consciousness of his own impotence : he
withdraws himself from a too close contact with the world,
thus to create those ideas and formulae with which he
hopes to gain the upper hand. His, therefore, is the
psychology of the oppressed, whilst the feeling-into subject
confronts the object with an a priori confidence — its
inanimateness has no dangers for him.
This characterization is naturally schematic, and makes
no pretence to be a complete portrait of the extraverted
or introverted attitude; it merely emphasizes certain
nuances, which, nevertheless, have a not inconsiderable
importance.
Just as the feeling-into subject is really taking
unconscious delight in himself by way of .the object, so
the abstracting subject unwittingly sees himself while
meditating upon the impression that reaches him from
the object. For what the feeling-into subject transveys
into the object is himself, i.e. his own unconscious content,
and what the abstracting man thinks concerning his
impression of the object is really thoughts about his own
feelings, which appear to him as though belonging to the
368
TYPE-PROBLEM IN -ESTHETICS
object. It follows, therefore, that both functions are
involved in a real understanding of the object, as indeed
they are also essential to a real creativeness in art. Both
functions are also constantly present in the individual,
although for the most part unequally differentiated.
In Worringer’s view the common root of these two
basic forms of aesthetic experience is the need for self-
divestiture. In abstraction the effort of the subject “is
to be wholly delivered from the fortuitous in human
affairs, the apparently arbitrary power of general organic
existence, in the contemplation of something immovable
and necessary ”. In face of the bewildering and impressive
profusion of animated objects, the individual creates an
abstraction, Le. an abstract and general image, which
conjures impressions into a law-abiding form. This
image has the magical importance of a defence against
the chaotic change of experience. He becomes so lost
and submerged in this image that finally its abstract
truth is set above the reality of life ; and therewith life,
which might disturb the enjoyment of abstract beauty,
is wholly suppressed. He raises himself to an abstraction ;
he identifies himself with the eternal validity of his
image and therein congeals, since it practically amounts
to a redeeming formula. In this way he divests himself
of his real self and transfers his life into his abstraction,
in which it is, so to speak, crystallized.
But since the feeling-into subject feels his activity,
his life, into the object, he therewith also yields himself to
the object, in so far as the felt-into content represents
an essential part of the subject. He becomes the object ;
he identifies himself with it, and in this way gets rid of
himself. Because he objectifies himself he, therefore,
de-subjectifies himself. Worringer says :
" But since we feel this will to activity into another object,
we are in the other object. We are released from our own indivi-
TYPE-PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS
3^9
dual being, just in so far as our urge for experience engrosses us
in an outer object or an extrinsic form. In contrast to the
limitless diversity of individual consciousness, we feel our in-
dividuality flowing, as it were, within fixed bounds. In this
self-objectification there lies a self-divestiture. At the same
time, this affirmation of our individual need for activity re-
presents a restriction of its illimitable possibilities, a negation
of its irreconcilable diversities. We needs must rest, with our
inner urgings towards activity, within the limits of this objecti-
fication." p. 27)
As in the case of the abstracting individual, the
abstract image represents a comprehensive formula, a
bulwark against the disintegrating effects of the uncon-
sciously animated object 1 , so for the feeling-into subject,
the transference to the object is a defence against the
disintegration caused by inner subjective factors, which
consist in boundless phantasy possibilities and correspond-
ing impulses to activity. Although, according to Adler,
the introverted neurotic, is held fast to a “fictitious
guiding line”, the extraverted neurotic clings no less
tenaciously to his transference to the object. The
introvert has abstracted his “ guiding line ” from his good
and evil experiences with objects, and he trusts himself
to his formula as a means of defence against the unlimited
possibilities of life.
Fe ding-into and abstraction, e xtraversion and intro-
version, are mechanisms of adaptation and defence . In so
far as they make adaptation possible, they protect man
from external dangers. In so far as they are directed
functions * they liberate him from fortuitous impulses;
moreover, they actually protect him, since they render
self-divestiture possible for him.
As our daily psychological experience testifies, there
1 Ft. Th. Vischer, in his novel Auch Einar gives an excellent picture
of " animated 99 objects.
1 Cf. directed thinking : Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious
ch. i, pp. 13 ft
N
370 TYPE-PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS
are numbers of men who are wholly identified with their
directed function (the “valuable” function), and among
them are those very types we are here discussing. Identi-
fication with the directed function has the incontestable
advantage that by so doing a man can best adapt himself
to collective claims and expectations; moreover, it also
enables him to avoid his inferior, undifferentiated, and
undirected functions through self-divestiture. Besides,
from the standpoint of social morality, unselfishness is
always considered a particular virtue. But, upon the
other side, we have to weigh the great disadvantage that
inevitably accompanies this identification with the directed
function, viz. the degeneration of the individual. Man,
doubtless, is capable of a very extensive reduction to the
mechanical level, although never to the point of complete
surrender, without suffering gravest injury. For the more
he is identified with the one function, the more does its
over-charge of libido withdraw libido from the other
functions. For a long period, maybe, they will endure
even an extreme deprivation of libido, but in time they
will inevitably react The draining of libido involves their
gradual relapse below the threshold of consciousness, their
associative connection with consciousness gets loosened,
until they sink by degrees into the unconscious. This is
synonymous with a regressive development; namely, a
recession of the relatively developed function to an
infantile and eventually archaic level But, since man has
spent relatively only a few thousand years in a cultivated
state, as opposed to many hundred thousand years in a
state of savagery, the archaic function-ways are corre-
spondingly extraordinarily vigorous and easily reanimated.
Hence, when certain functions become disintegrated
through deprivation of libido, their archaic foundations
begin to operate in the unconscious.
This condition involves a dissociation of the person-
TYPE-PROBLEM IN AESTHETICS 371
ality ; for, the archaic functions having no direct relation
with consciousness, no practicable bridges exist between
the conscious and the unconscious. It follows, therefore,
that the further self-divestiture goes, the further do the
atonic functions decline towards the archaic. Therewith
the importance of the unconscious also increases. It begins
to provoke symptomatic disturbances of the directed
function, thus producing that characteristic circulus vitiosus,
which we encounter in so many neuroses: the patient
seeks to compensate the unconsciously disturbing influence
by means of special performances of the directed function ;
and so the chase continues, even, on occasion, to the point
of nervous collapse.
Conceivably, this possibility of self-divestiture through
identification with the directed function depends not only
upon a one-sided restriction to the one function, but also
upon the fact that the nature of the directed function is
a principle which actually demands self-divestiture. Thus
every directed function demands the strict exclusion of
everything not suited to its nature; thinking excludes
every harassing feeling, just as feeling excludes each dis-
turbing thought Without the repression of everything
that differs from itself, the directed function cannot
operate at all. But, on the other hand, the self-regulation
of the living organism makes such a strong, natural
demand for the harmonizing of human nature that the
consideration of the less favoured functions forces itself
to the front as a necessity of life, and an unavoidable
task in the education of the human race.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PROBLEM OF TYPES IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
1. William James’ Types
The existence of two types has also been revealed in
modem pragmatic philosophy, particularly in the philosophy
of William James\ He says:
" The history of philosophy is, to a great extent, that of a
certain clash of human temperaments (characterological disposi-
tions) ” (p. 6.) “ Of whatever temperament a professional
philosopher is, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact of
his temperament. . . . Yet his temperament really gives him
a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises.
It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, ma-Tring
for a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the uni-
verse, just as this fact or that principle would. He trusts his
temperament. Wanting a universe that suits it, he believes in
any representation of the universe that does suit it. He feels
men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world's char-
acter, and in his heart considers them incompetent and * not in
it/ in the philosophic business, even though they may far excel
him in dialectical ability.
“ Yet in the forum he can make no claim, on the bare ground
of his temperament, to superior discernment or authority. There
arises thus a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions :
the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned." *
Whereupon James proceeds to the characterization
of the two temperaments. Just as in the province of
manners and customs we find formalists and free-and-
easy persons, in the political world authoritarians and
anarchists, in literature purists or academicals and realists,
i W. James, Pragmatism : a new name for some old ways of thinking*
(London : Longmans rgn)
1 PP* 7
m
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 373
in art classics and romantics, so in philosophy, according
to James, there are also to be found two types, viz. the
"rationalist” and the “empiricist”. The rationalist is
“your devotee to abstract and eternal principles”. The
empiricist is the “ lover of facts in all their crude variety ”. 1
Although no man can dispense either with facts or with
principles, yet entirely distinct points of view develop
which correspond with the value given to either side.
James makes “rationalism” synonymous with “intel-
lectualism ” and “ empiricism ” with “ sensationalism
Although, in my opinion, this comparison is not sound,
we will continue with James’ line of thought, reserving
our criticism for the time being. According to his view,
an idealistic and optimistic tendency is associated with
intellectualism, whilst empiricism inclines to materialism
and a purely conditional and precarious optimism.
Rationalism (intellectualism) is always monistic . It begins
with the “whole” and the universal and unites things;
whereas empiricism begins with the part and converts
the whole into a collection. The latter therefore, may
be termed pluralistic . The rationalist is a man of feeling,
while the empiricist is a hard-headed creature. The
former is naturally disposed to a firm belief in free will,
the latter to fatalism. The rationalist is readily dogmatic
in his statements, while the empiricist is sceptical
(pp. 10 ff.) James describes the rationalist as tender -
minded, the empiricist as tough-minded. His aim, clearly,
is to characterize the peculiar quality of the two mentali-
ties. We must take a further opportunity of examining
this characterization rather more closely. It is interesting
to hear what James has to say concerning the prejudices
which are mutually cherished by the two types. “ They
have a low opinion of each other. Their antagonism,
whenever as individuals their temperaments have been
1 p. 9 -
374 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
intense, has formed in all ages a part of the philosophic
atmosphere of the time. It forms a part of the philo-
sophical atmosphere of to-day. The tough think of the
tender as sentimentalists and soft-heads. The tender
feel the tough to be unrefined, callous, or brutal. . . Each
type believes the other to be inferior to itself.” (pp. 12 ff.)
James catalogues the qualities of both types in two
contrasting columns thus :
Tender-minded
Tough-minded
Rationalistic (going by principles)
Intellectualistic
Idealistic
Optimistic
Religious
Free-willist
Monistic
Dogmatical
Empiricist (going by facts)
Sensationalistic
Materialistic
Pessimistic
Irreligious
Fatalistic
Pluralistic
Sceptical
This comparison touches upon various problems we
have met with already in the chapter upon nominalism
and realism. The tender-minded has certain traits in
common with the realist, and the tough-minded with the
nominalist As I have already pointed out, realism corre-
sponds with the principle of introversion, nominalism
with extraversion. Without doubt the universalia con-
troversy also belongs, in the first place, to that historical
"clash of temperaments” in philosophy to which James
alludes. These associations prompt us to regard the
tender-minded as introverted, and the tough-minded as
extraverted. It devolves upon us, however, to redouble
our scrutiny before deciding whether or no this combination
is valid.
From my naturally somewhat limited knowledge of
James* writings, I have not succeeded in discovering any
more detailed definitions or descriptions of the two types,
although he frequently refers to these two kinds of
thinking, and incidentally describes them as "thin” and
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 375
‘thick”. Flournoy 1 interprets “thin” as “mince, t6nu,
maigre, ch£tif” and “thick” as “dpais, solide, massif,
cossu”. James, on one occasion, also uses the expression
“soft-headed” for the tender-minded. Both “soft” and
“tender” suggest something delicate, mild, gentle, light;
hence weak, subdued, and rather powerless, in contrast to
“thick” and “tough”, which are resistant qualities, solid
and hard to change, recalling the nature of matter and
substance. Flournoy accordingly elucidates the two kinds
of thinking as follows : “ It is the opposition between the
abstractionist manner of thinking — in other words, the
purely logical and dialectical fashion so dear to phil-
osophers, which fails, however, to inspire James with any
confidence, appearing to him as fragile, hollow “ chdtive ”,
because too withdrawn from the contact of individual
things — and the concrete manner of thinking, which is
nourished on the facts of experience and never quits the
earthy region of tortoise-shells or other positive facts.”
(P- 32>
We should not, of course, conclude from this com-
mentary that James has a one-sided approval of concrete
thinking. He appreciates both standpoints: “Facts are
good, of course . . . give us lots of facts. Principles are
good . . . give us plenty of principles.” Admittedly, a
fact never exists only as it is in itself, but also as we view
it. If, therefore, James describes concrete thinking as
“thick” or "tough”, he thereby demonstrates that for
him this kind of thinking has something substantial and
resistant, while abstract thinking appears as something
weak, thin, and pallid, perhaps even (if we interpret with
Flournoy) rather sickly and decrepit Naturally, such a
view is possible only for one who has made an a priori,
connection between substantiality and the concrete fact
r Tli. Flournoy, ha philosophic de W. James, p. 32 (Saint Blaise.
376 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
and that, as we have already said, is just where the
question of temperament comes in. If the “empirical”
thinker attributes a resistant substantiality to his concrete
thinking, from the abstract standpoint he is deceiving
himself, because substantiality, or “ hardness ”, belongs to
the external fact and not to his “empirical” thinking.
In fact, the latter turns out to be particularly weak and
decrepit ; for, so little does it know how to maintain itself
in the presence of the external fact, that it must always
be running after, even depending upon, sense-given facts,
and, in consequence, can hardly be said to rise above the
level of a mere classifying or presenting activity.
From the thinking standpoint, therefore, there is some-
thing very frail and dependent about concrete thinking,
because, instead of having stability in itself, it depends
upon outer objects, which are superordinated to thought
as determining values. Hence this kind of thinking is
characterized by a succession of sense-bound representa-
tions, which are set in motion, not so much by an inner
thought - activity, as by the changing stream of sense
perceptions. A succession of concrete representations
conditioned by sensuous perceptions is not precisely what
the abstract thinker would term thinking, but at best only
a passive apperception.
The temperament that prefers concrete thinking, and
grants it substantiality, is distinguished, therefore, by a
preponderance of sense -conditioned representations, as
against active apperception, which springs from a sub-
jective act of will, whose aim it is to command the
sense-determined representations in accordance with the
tendencies of an idea. To put it more briefly: more
weight is given to the object in such a temperament ; the
object is felt-into; it maintains a quasi-independent
behaviour in the idea-world of the subject, and carries
comprehension along in its train. This is therefore an
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 377
extraverting temperament The thinking of the extravert
is concretistic. His soundness and stability do not lie in
himself, but very largely outside himself in the felt-into
facts of experience, whence also James’ qualification
"tough” is derived. To the man who is always ranged
upon the side of concrete thinking, upon the side of
representations of facts, abstraction appears as something
feeble and decrepit, something he is well able to dispense
with, in face of the solidity of concrete, sense-established
facts. But, for the man who is on the side of abstraction,
it is not the sense-conditioned representation, but the
abstract idea, which is the decisive factor.
According to the current conception, an idea is
nothing but an abstraction of a sum of experiences. With
such a notion the human mind is readily conceived as a
sort of tabula rasa, that gradually gets covered with the
perceptions and experiences of life. From this stand-
point, which in the widest sense is the standpoint of our
empirical science, the idea can be nothing at all, but an
epiphenomenal, a posteriori abstraction from experiences —
hence feebler and more colourless than these. But we
know that the mind cannot be a tabula rasa, since we have
only to criticize our principles of thought to perceive that
certain categories of our thinking are given a priori, Le.
antecedent to all experience, and make a simultaneous
appearance with the first act of thought, being, in fact,
its preformed conditions. For what Kant proved for
logical thinking holds good for the psyche over a still
wider range. At the beginning, the psyche is no more a
tabula rasa than is the mind (the province of thought).
To be sure the concrete contents are lacking, but the
contents - possibilities are given a priori through the
inherited and preformed functional disposition. The psyche
is simply the product of brain-functioning throughout our
whole ancestral line, a precipitate of the adaptation-efforts
378 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
and experiences of the phylogenetic succession. Hence
the newly-born brain or function-system is an ancient
instrument, prepared for quite definite ends; it is not
merely a passive, apperceptive instrument, but is also in
active command of experience outside itself, forcing
certain conclusions or judgments. These adjustments are
not merely accidental or arbitrary happenings, but adhere
to strictly preformed conditions, which are not transmitted,
as are perception-contents, through experience, but are
a priori conditions of apprehension. They are ideas ante
rem, form-determinants, basic lines engraven a priori,
assigning a definite formation to the stuff of experience ;
so that we may regard them as images (as Plato also
conceived them), as schemata as it were, or inherited
function - possibilities, which, moreover, exclude other
possibilities, or, at all events, restrict them to a great
extent This explains why even phantasy, the freest
activity of the mind, can never roam in the infinite (albeit,
so the poet senses it), but remains bound to the preformed
possibilities, the primordial images or archetypes. In the
similarity of their motives, the fairy-tales of the most
remote peoples show this binding connection to certain
root-images. The very images which underlie scientific
theories reveal this inherent restrictiveness ; for example,
ether, energy, its transformations and its constancy, the
atomic theory, affinity, and so forth.
Just as the sense-given representation prevails in, and
gives direction to, the concretely thinking mind, so the
contentless, and therefore unrepresentable, archetype is
paramount in the mind that thinks abstractly. It remains
relatively inactive, so long as the object is felt-into and
thus raised to the determining factor of thought But,
when the object is not felt-into, and thus deprived of
its priority in the mental process, the energy thus denied
to it returns again into the subject The subject is un-
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 379
consciously felt-into ; whereupon the preformed images
are awakened from their slumber, emerging as effective
factors in the mental process, although in unrepresentable
form, rather like invisible stage managers behind the
scenes. Being merely activated function possibilities, they
are without contents, therefore unimaginable ; accordingly,
they strive towards realization. They draw the stuff of
experience into their shape, presenting themselves in facts
rather than presenting facts. They clothe themselves in
facts, as it were. Hence they are not a known starting-
point, like the empirical fact in concrete thinking, but
only become experienceable through their unconscious
shaping of the stuff of experience. Even the empiricist
can arrange and shape the material of his experience ; he,
nevertheless, forms it, as far as possible, after a concrete
idea which he has built up on the basis of past experience.
The abstractionist, oh the other hand, shapes after an
unconscious model, only gaining an a posteriori experience
of the idea, which was his model, by a consideration of the
phenomenon he has formed. The empiricist, working
from his own psychology, is always inclined to assume
that the abstractionist shapes the material of experience
in a quite arbitrary fashion from certain pale, feeble, and
inadequate premises, measuring as he does the mental
process of the abstractionist by his own modus procedendi.
The actual premise, i.e. the idea or root-image, is, however,
just as unknown to the abstractionist as, in the case of the
empiricist, is that theory which, after such and such experi-
ments, he will subsequently build up out of experience.
As was explained in an earlier chapter, the one sees the
individual object and interests himself in its individual
behaviour, while the other has mainly in view the
/elations of similarity between objects, and disregards the
individuality of the fact Amidst the disintegration of
multiplicity he finds more peace and comfort in what is
380 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
uniform and coherent. To the former, however, the
relation of similarity is frankly burdensome and harassing,
something that may even hinder him from seizing the
perception of the object’s particularity. The further he is
able to feel himself into the individual object, the more he
discerns its peculiarity, and the more the reality of a relation
of similarity with another object vanishes from his view..
But, if he also knew how to feel himself into another
object, he would be in a position to sense and understand
the similarity of both objects to a far higher degree than
the man who viewed them simply and solely from without
It is because he first feels himself into one object
and then into another that the concrete thinker comes
only very slowly to the discernment of the connecting
similarities, and for this reason his thinking appears
torpid and sluggish. But his feeling-into flows readily.
The abstract thinker quickly seizes the similarity, replaces
the individual object by general, distinguishing marks,
and shapes this material with his own inner thought
activity, which, however, is just as powerfully influenced
by the ‘shadowy’ archetype as is the concrete thinker
by the object. The greater the influence the object has
upon thinking, the more are its characters stamped upon
the thought-image. But the less the object operates, in
the mind, with all the more power will the a priori idea
set its impress upon experience.
Through the exaggerated importance of the empirical
object there has arisen in science a certain sort of
specialist theory, as, for instance, that familiar ‘brain-
mythology’ which appeared in psychiatry, wherein an
attempt was made to explain a very large domain of
experience from principles, which, although pertinent for
the elucidation of certain constellations of facts within
narrow limits, are wholly inadequate for every other
application. But, on the other hand, abstract thinking ,
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 381
which accepts one individual fact only because of its
similarity with another, creates a universal hypothesis
which, while bringing the idea to a more or less clear
presentation, has .just as much or as little to do with
the nature of concrete facts as a myth.
Both thought-forms, therefore, in their extreme ex-
pressions, create a mythology, the one expressing it
concretely with cells, atoms, vibrations, and so forth, the
other with “ eternal ” ideas. Extreme empiricism has, at
least, this advantage: it brings facts to the clearest possible
presentation. But the advantage of extreme ideologism
is that it reflects back the a priori forms, the ideas or
archetypes, with the utmost purity. The theoretical
results of the former are exhausted with their material;
the practical results of the latter are confined to the
presentation of the psychological idea.
Because our present scientific mind adopts a one-sided,
concrete, and purely empirical, attitude, it has no standard
by which to value the man who presents the idea ; since,
in the estimation of the empiricist, facts rank higher than
the knowledge of those primordial forms in which human
intelligence conceives them. This tacking toward the
side of concretism is, as we know, a relatively recent
acquisition, a relict from the epoch of enlightenment
The results of this development are astonishing, but they
have led to an accumulation of empirical material whose
very immensity gradually produces more confusion than
clarity. It inevitably leads to a scientific separatism, and
therewith to a specialist mythology, which spells death
to universality. But the preponderance of empiricism
not only means a smothering of active thinking, it also
involves a danger to the laying down of sound theories
within any branch of science. The absence of a general
view-point favours mythical theory-building, just as much
as does the absence of an empirical point of view.
382 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
In my view, therefore, James’ “ tender-minded ” and
* tough-minded ” are manifestly but a one-sided termin-
ology, and at bottom conceal a certain prejudice. But it
should, at least, have become evident from this discussion
that James’ characterization deals with those same types
which I have termed the introverted and the extraverted.
2. The Characteristic Fairs of Opposites in James’
Types
(a) The first pair of opposites instanced by James as
a distinguishing feature of the types is Rationalism versus
Empiricism.
As the reader will have remarked, I have already
dealt with this antithesis in a previous chapter, conceiving
it as the opposition between ideologists and empiricism.
I have avoided the expression “ rationalism ”, because con-
crete, empirical thinking is just as " rational ” as active,
ideological thinking. The ratio governs both forms. There
exists, moreover, not merely a logical rationalism but also
a feeling rationalism; for rationalism is nothing but a
general psychological attitude towards reasonableness of
thought and feeling. With this understanding of the
concept “rationalism”, I find myself in definite and
conscious opposition to the historical philosophical con-
ception, which understands * rationalistic ” in the sense of
“ ideological ”, thus conceiving rationalism as the supremacy
of the idea. With the modern philosophers, however, the
ratio has been stripped of its purely ideal character ; it is
even described as a capacity, instinct, intention, as a
feeling even, or, again, a method. At all events— considered
psychologically — it is a certain attitude governed, as Lipps
says, by the “ feeling of objectivity ”. Baldwin 1 regards it
as the “constitutive, regulative principle of the mind”.
l Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, i, p. 31a*
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 383
Herbart interprets it as “ the capacity of reflection ” 1 -
Schopenhauer says of the reason, that it has only one
function, namely “the shaping of the idea ; and from this
unique function all those above-mentioned manifestations,
which distinguish the life of man from that of the animal,
are very easily and completely explained, and in the
application or non-application of that function, positively
everything is meant which men in all places and of all times
have called reasonable or unreasonable”*. The "above-
mentioned manifestations” refer to certain properties of
reason, instanced by Schopenhauer by way of example,
namely “the command of affects and passions, the capacity
for drawing conclusions and constructing general principles,
. . . the concerted action of several individuals . . . civiliza-
tion, the state ; also science and the preservation of
previous experience, etc.” If reason, as Schopenhauer
asserts, has the function of forming ideas, it must alcr>
possess the character of that psychic attitude which is
fitted to shape ideas through the activity of thought. It is
entirely in this sense of an attitude that Jerusalem * also
conceives the reason, namely as a disposition of the will
which enables us, in our decisions, to make use of our
reason and control our passions.
Reason, therefore, is the capacity to be reasonable, a
definite attitude which enables thought, feeling, and action
to correspond with objective values. From the standpoint
of empiricism this “ objective ” value is the yield of experi-
ence, but from the ideological standpoint it is the result
of a positive act of valuation on the part of the reason,
which in the Kantian sense would be a “ faculty of judg-
ment and action in accordance with basic principles”.
For, with Kant, the reason is the source of the idea, which
1 Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, sect. 117.
* Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. i, par. 8.
* Jerusalem, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, p. 195.
384 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
is a “ reasoning concept whose object can positively not
be encountered in experience ”, and which “ contains the
primordial image of the use of the mind — as a regulative
principle for the purpose of gaining general coherence in
our empirical mental practice ” {Logik, pp. 140 ff.). This
is a genuinely introverted view. In vivid contrast to
this is the empiricistic view of Wundt, who declares that
the reason belongs to a group of complex intellectual
functions, knit together into one general expression,
together with w their antecedent phases, which yield them
an indispensable sensuous substratum ”. 1
“ It is self-evident that this concept ‘ intellectual ' is a survival
of the faculty-psychology, and suffers, possibly even more than
such old concepts as memory, mind, phantasy etc., from confusion
with logical points of view which have nothing to do with psychology .
What is more natural, therefore, than that it should become all
the more indefinite, and at the same time more arbitrary, the more
manifold the psychic contents it embraces ? ” “ If, to the
standpoint of scientific psychology, there exists no memory, no
mind, and no phantasy, but merely certain elementary psychic
processes and their relations , which, with rather arbitrary dis-
crimination one includes under those names, still less, of course,
can there exist an ' intelligence * or * an intellectual function ',
but merely a uniform, permanently restricted concept corre-
sponding with matter of fact. Nevertheless certain cases remain
where it is useful to avail oneself of these borrowed concepts
from the old inventory of the faculty psychology, even though
one uses them in a sense modified by their psychological accepta-
tion. Such cases arise whenever we encounter complex pheno-
mena of very variously mingled constituents, which, on account
of the regularity of their combination, and above all on practical
grounds, demand our consideration; or when individual con-
sciousness affords us definite tendencies of design and formation,
and when, once again, the regularity of the combination challenges
an analysis of such complex mental capacities. But in all these
cases it is naturally the tosh of psychological research not to remain
rigidly adherent to the general concepts thus formed, but to reduce
them, whenever possible, to their simple factors ”
This view is thoroughly extraverted. I have italicized
the specially characteristic passages. Whereas to the
1 Wundt, Grvndz&ge der phys. Psychol., 5th edn., vol. iii, pp. 582 ff.
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY * 385
introverted point of view * general concepts ’ such as reason,
intellect, etc., are ‘ faculties *, simple basic functions,
which embrace in a uniform sense the multiplicity of the
psychic processes governed by them, to the standpoint of
the extraverted empiricist they are nothing but secondary,
derived concepts, elaborations of those elementary pro-
cesses upon which the holders of this view lay the chief
value. According to this standpoint, it is better that we
should have no dealings with such concepts, but should,
on principle, “constantly reduce them to their simple
factors”. Obviously for the empiricist any other than
reductive thinking in connection with general concepts is
simply out of the question, since for him concepts are
mere derivatives of experience. He can have no sort of
knowledge of * rational concepts \ or a priori ideas, since
his passive, apperceptive thinking is orientated by sense-
conditioned experience. As a result of this attitude, the
object is always accentuated : it is, as it were, active,
necessitating perceptions and complicated reasonings ; but
these demand the existence of general concepts, which,
however, serve only to comprise certain groups of
phenomena under one collective designation. Thus the
general concept is, naturally, a mere secondary factor,
which, apart from language, has no real existence.
Science, therefore, can concede to reason, phantasy,
etc., no right to independent existence, so long as it
supports the view that only what is present as sense-
accredited matter of fact (‘elementary factors*) has any
real existence. But when thinking, as in the case of the
introvert, is orientated by active apperception, reason,
intellect, phantasy, etc., have the value of basic functions, or
faculties, powers or activities operating externally from
within : this is because the accent of value for this stand-
point is given to the concept, and not to the elementary
processes covered and comprised by the concept Such a
386 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
thinking is fundamentally synthetic. It is regulated in
accordance with the schema of the concept, and employs
the material of experience for the fulfilment of its ideas.
The concept appears as the active principle just by reason
of its own inner force, which seizes and shapes the
material of experience.
The extravert assumes that the source of this force is
mere arbitrary choice, or else an ill-considered generaliza-
tion from limited experience. The introvert, who is
unconscious of his own thought-psychology, and may
even have adopted the empiricism in vogue as his guiding
principle, finds himself defenceless against this reproach.
But the reproach itself is merely a projection of extra-
verted psychology. For the active thinking type derives
the energy of his thought-activity neither from arbitrary
choice nor from experience, but from the idea, ue. from
the innate functional form which is activated through his
introverted attitude. To him, this source is unconscious,
since by reason of its a priori lack of content he can only
become aware of the idea in an a posteriori formation,
namely, in the form which the material of experience
assumes through its elaboration by thought But, to the
extravert, the object and the elementary process are
important and indispensable, because he has unconsciously
projected the idea into the object; hence he is able to
mount to the concept, and therewith to the idea, only
through empirical accumulation and comparison. The
two ways of thinking are mutually opposed in a remarkable
way : the one shapes the material out of his own uncon-
scious idea, and thus comes to experience ; the other lets
himself be guided by the material which contains his
unconsciously projected ideas, and thus reaches the idea.
There is something intrinsically irritating in this conflict
of attitude, and at bottom, this is the cause of the most
heated and futile scientific discussions. ’
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 387
I trust that this discussion sufficiently illustrates my
view, that the ratio and its one-sided elevation to a
principle, viz. rationalism, applies equally well both to
empiricism and to ideologism. Instead of ideologism.
we might have used the term ‘idealism*. But to this
application of the word, its antithesis ‘ materialism ’ stands
opposed, and it would have been impossible to use ‘ ideo-
logical ’ as opposed to ‘ materialistic *, since the materialist,
as the history of philosophy testifies, may be, and often is,
just as much an ideologist, eg, when he is not an em-
piricist but thinks actively from the universal concept of
matter.
(6) The second pair of opposites advanced by James
is Intellectualism versus Sensationalism .
Sensationalism is the expression that characterizes
the nature of extreme empiricism. It postulates sense-
experience as the unique and exclusive source of cognition.
The sensationalistic attitude is entirely orientated by the
sense-given object ; its orientation, therefore, is outward.
James evidently means an intellectual rather than an
aesthetic sensationalism, but “ intellectualism ” even then
scarcely seems its appropriate antithesis. Psychologically,
intellectualism is an attitude that is distinguished by the
fact that it gives the principal determining value to the
intellect, ue. to cognition upon a conceptual level. But
with such an attitude I can also be a sensationalist, viz.
I may engage my thinking with concrete concepts wholly
derived from sense experience. Hence the empiricist may
also be intellectual. In philosophy, intellectualism and
rationalism are employed almost promiscuously ; hence
ideologism must again be used as the antithesis to sen-
sationalism, since, in its essence, sensationalism is only
an extreme empiricism.
(*) James* third pair of opposites is Idealism versus
Materialism.
388 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
One may already have begun to wonder whether by
“ sensationalism ” James merely intended an intensified
empiricism, i.e. an intellectual sensationalism, or whether,
in using the expression “ sensationalistic ”, he may con-
ceivably have wished to bring out the quality pertaining
to sensation as a function quite apart from the intellect.
By ‘pertaining to sensation* I mean true sensuousness
(Sinnlichkeit), not of course as voluptas in the vulgar
sense, but as a psychological attitude in which the orienta-
ting and determining factor is not so much the felt-into
object as the mere fact of sense-stimulation and sense-
perception. This might also be described as a reflexive
attitude (i.e. an attitude based on reflex phenomena), since
the whole mentality depends upon and culminates in sense-
perception. The object is neither realized abstractly nor
felt-into, but operates through its natural form and manner
of existence, the subject being exclusively orientated by
sense-impressions stimulated by contact with the object.
This attitude would correspond with a primitive mentality.
Its essential antithesis is the intuitive attitude , which is
distinguished by an immediate sensing or apprehension
that is neither intellectual nor feeling, but contains both
in inseparable combination. Just as the sensuous object
appears in perception, so the psychic content also
appears in intuition, hence as quasi-illusionary or halluci-
natory.
That James should describe the tough-minded as both
“sensationalistic” and “ materialistic ” (and further still as
* irreligious ”) encourages the doubt as to whether, in his
description of types, he has really in view the same type
antithesis as I have. Materialism, as commonly under-
stood, is an attitude whose orientation corresponds with
“ material ” values — in other words, a kind of moral sensa-
tionalism. Hence James’ characterization would yield a
very unfavourable portrait, if we were to misconstrue these
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 389
expressions in the sense of their common significance.
But this must not be imputed to James, whose observa-
tions upon the types, quoted above, should prevent any
such misunderstanding. We are almost justified, therefore,
in assuming that James is principally concerned with
the philosophical significance of the terms in question.
Materialism, then, means an attitude naturally orientated
by material values, not, however, by “ sensuous ” so much
as fact values, wherein “ fact ” signifies something external
and, in a sense, concrete. Its antithesis is “ idealism ”, in
the philosophical sense of a supreme valuation of the idea.
It cannot be a moral idealism that is meant here, for in
that case we should have to assume, contrary to James'
intention, that his “materialism” means a moral sensa-
tionalism. But, if we assume that by materialism he
means an attitude wherein the principal orientating value
is given to actual reality, we are again in a position to
trace an extroverted peculiarity in this attribute, whereat
our original doubts vanish. We have already seen that
philosophical idealism corresponds with introverted ideo-
logism. A moral idealism would in no way be character-
istic for the introvert, for the materialist can also be
morally idealistic.
(d) The fourth pair of opposites is Optimism versus
Pessimism.
I am extremely doubtful whether this familiar anti-
thesis, by which, indeed, human temperaments can be
differentiated, is really applicable to James’ types. Is, for
instance, the empiricism of Darwin also pessimistic? It
is undoubtedly true of the man who, with an ideologistical
view of the world, sees the other human types through the
glasses of an unconscious feeling projection. But even the
empiricist is by no means wont to conceive his view as
pessimistic on that account Or take the thinker Schopen-
hauer, for instance, whose world-philosophy is purely
390 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
ideologists (in all respects like the pure ideologism of the
Upanishads) ; is he somewhat of an optimist according to
the James classification? Kant himself, a very pure
introverted type, stands as remote from either optimism
or pessimism as do the great empiricists.
It seems to me, therefore, that this antithesis has
nothing to do with James’ types. Just as there are
optimistic introverts, there are also optimistic extraverts
and vice versa. It would, however, be quite possible for
James to have fallen into this mistake as a result of the
subjective projection previously referred to. A material-
istic or purely empiricistic or positivistic world-philosophy
seems utterly cheerless from the standpoint of the ideo-
logist He must, therefore, sense it as pessimistic. But,
to the man who puts his faith in the god ‘Matter’, the
materialistic view of the world seems optimistic. From the
ideological standpoint the materialistic conception seems to
sever the vital nerve, since its chief power, active apper-
ception and the realization of the archetypes, is thereby
paralysed. To the ideologist, therefore, such a view must
appear completely pessimistic, for it robs him of all hope of
ever again beholding the eternal idea embodied and realized
upon the phenomenal plane. A world of real facts would
mean banishment and perpetual homelessness. When,
therefore, James draws a parallel between the materialistic
and the pessimistic points of view, we are entitled to infer
that he personally may belong to the ideologistical side
—an assumption that might easily be subtantiated by
numerous other characteristics from the life of this
philosopher. This circumstance might also explain why
the tough-minded has been saddled with the three some-
what dubious epithets — sensationalistic, materialistic, and
irreligious. This inference is further corroborated by that
passage in Pragmatism where James compares the mutual
aversion between the types with a rencontre between
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN. PHILOSOPHY 391
Bostonian tourists and the inhabitants of Cripple Creek \
This comparison is hardly flattering to the other type, and
allows one to infer an emotional aversion against which
even a strong desire for justice does not wholly prevail.
This little human document seems to me a most valuable
witness to the existence of an irritating disparity between
the two types. It may, perhaps, seem trivial that I should
make rather a point of such incompatibilities of feeling.
But numerous experiences have convinced me that it is
just such feelings as these, lying unobserved in the back-
ground of consciousness, that occasionally deflect even the
most impartial reasoning, colouring it with prejudice and
wholly thwarting understanding. It is, indeed, conceivable
that the Cripple Creek inhabitants might also eye the
Boston tourists in their own particular way.
(e) The fifth pair of opposites is Religiousness versus
Irreligiousness.
Naturally, the validity of this antithesis for James’
type-psychology depends essentially upon the definition
he gives to religiousness. If he conceives its nature
wholly from the ideologistical standpoint, as an attitude
in which the religious idea plays the dominant rdle (in
contrast to feeling), he is certainly justified in describing
the tough- minded as also irreligious. But James’ thought
is so wide and so essentially human that he can hardly
have omitted to see that the religious attitude can also
be determined by religious feeling . In fact, he himself
says: "But our esteem for facts has not neutralized in
us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our
scientific temper is devout.” 2
x James, Pragmatism, p. 13. The Bostonians are notorious on
account of their “ spiritualized ” aestheticism. Cripple Creek is a
weU-known mining district in Colorado. The contrast can be easily
imagined. " Each type believes the other to be inferior to itself;
but disdain in the one case is mingled with amusement, in the other it
has a dash of fear.**
t James, l.c., p. 15.
392 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
The empiricist replaces a lack of respect for “ eternal ”
ideas by an almost religious belief in the actual fact. If
a man’s attitude is orientated by the idea of God, it would
be psychologically the same, were he orientated by the
idea of matter, or were he to exalt real facts to the
determining factor of his attitude. Only in so far as this
orientation takes place unconditionally does it deserve the
epithet “religious”. But, considered from a high stand-
point, the real fact has the value of an unconditional
factor equally with the idea, the archetype, which is the
age-long product of the reactions and repercussions of
man and his inner determinants with the hard facts of
external reality. At all events, from the psychological
standpoint, absolute surrender to real facts can never be
described as irreligious. The tough-minded has his
empiricistic, just as the tender-minded has his ideologistic,
religion. It is, however, also a fact of our present cultural
epoch that science is governed by the object, religion
by the subject,. i.e. ideologism, for the primordial, self-
operative idea must take refuge somewhere, when, as in
science, it has been ousted from its place by the object.
If religion is thus understood as the present day
phenomenon of culture, James is so far justified in
describing the empiricist as irreligious — but only thus
far. For philosophers are not an absolutely isolated
class of men, and their types also will reach to common
humanity, far beyond the province of philosophic men,
perchance extending even to civilized humanity in general.
On this general ground, therefore, it is surely not per-
mitted to class as irreligious the half of civilized mankind.
From the psychology of the primitive we know that the
religious function belongs simply to the constitution of
the psyche, and is constantly and everywhere present,
however undifferentiated it may be.
If we are not to assume a limitation of James’ concept
TYPE-PROBLEM' IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 393
of “ religion ” such as we have just alluded to, then again
it must be a question of an affective derailment, which, as
we have already seen, can happen only too easily.
(/) The sixth pair of opposites is Indeterminism versus
Determinism.
This antithesis is, psychologically, of great interest.
It is obvious that empiricism thinks causally , whereby the
necessary connection between cause and effect is axioma-
tically assumed. The empiricistic attitude is orientated
by the felt-into object; it is, as it were, ‘impressed’ by
the external fact with a sense of the inevitability of effect
following cause. It is quite natural that the impression
of the unalterableness of the causal connection should,
psychologically, obtrude itself upon such an attitude.
The identification of the inner psychic processes with the
course of external facts is already granted by the fact that
a considerable sum of one’s own activity and life is uncon-
sciously bestowed upon the object in the act of feeling-into.
The subject is thereby assimilated to the object, although
the feeling-into subject believes that it is the object which
is assimilated. But, whenever a strong accent of value is
laid upon the object, it at once assumes an importance
which, in its turn, also influences the subject, forcing him
to a dissimilation from himself. Human psychology is,
admittedly, chameleon-like. This is a fact of daily experi-
ence in the work of the practical psychologist. Where the
object is constantly paramount, an assimilation to the
nature of the object takes place in the subject Thus, for
example, identification with the loved object plays no
small part in analytical therapy. Furthermore, the
psychology of the primitive provides us with abundant
examples of dissimilation in favour of the object, as, for
instance, the frequent assimilation to the totem animal
or ancestral spirits. The stigmatizing of Saints in medieval,
and even in recent times, belongs also to this connectioa
394 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
In the Imitatio Christi dissimilation is actually exalted to
a principle.
In view of this unquestionable aptitude of the human
psyche for dissimilation, the translation of the objective
causal connections into the subject can be easily under-
stood. The psyche, accordingly, labours under an
impression of the unique validity of the causal principle,
and the whole armoury of the theory of cognition is
required to ward off the overmastering power of this
impression. This is further aggravated by the fact that
the very nature of the empiricistic attitude prevents one
from believing in the inner freedom ; since every proof,
indeed every possibility of proof, is lacking. Of what
consequence is that frail, indefinite feeling of freedom in
face of the overwhelming mass of objective proofs to the
contrary ?
The determinism of the empiricist, therefore, is almost
inevitable, assuming that the empiricist carries his thinking
to its logical conclusion, and does not prefer — as not
infrequently happens — to possess two compartments, one
for science and the other for the religion he has acquired
from his parents and from society.
As we have already seen, the essence of ideologism
consists in the unconscious activation of the idea. This
activation can result from an aversion to feeling-into
acquired later in life, or it can exist from birth as an
a priori attitude, fashioned and favoured by Nature. (I
have, in my practical experience, seen many such cases.)
In this latter case the idea has an a priori activity, without,
however, appearing in consciousness, which is accounted
for by its emptiness and unrepresentability. As a para-
mount, inner, though unrepresentable, fact, it is super-
ordinated to “objective” external facts, and yields, at
least, a sense of its independence and freedom to the
subject, who, as a result of this inner assimilation to the
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 395
idea, feels himself independent and free vis-i-vis the object
When the idea is the principal orientating factor, it
assimilates the subject to its own quality just as completely
as the subject tries to assimilate the idea to himself through
the shaping of the material of experience. Thus, as in
the above-mentioned attitude to the object, there takes
place a dissimilation of the subject from himself, in the
reversed sense, however, viz. in favour of the idea.
The inherited archetype survives all ages ; it is a factor
superordinated to every change upon the phenomenal
plane, preceding and superseding all individual experience.
Hence the idea acquires a particular force. Its activation
transveys a pronounced feeling of power into the subject,
since it assimilates the subject to itself by means of inner
unconscious identification. There dawns within the subject
a feeling of power, independence, freedom, and eternity.
(Cf. Kant’s postulate of God, freedom, and immortality.)
When the subject senses the free activity of his idea
exalted above the reality of facts, the idea of freedom
makes its natural claim upon him. If his ideologism is
pure, he must certainly arrive at a conviction of free-will.
.The antithesis here reviewed is highly characteristic
for our types. The extravert is distinguished by his
striving towards the object, his feeling into and identifica-
tion with the object, and his willed dependence upon the
object He is influenced by the object in the same degree
as he strives to assimilate it. The introvert, on the other
hand, is distinguished by his apparent self-assertion in
presence of the object. He struggles against every
dependence upon the object; he repels every influence
from the object ; on occasion he even fears the object.
All the more, however, is he dependent upon the idea
which shields him from outer reality and yields him this
feeling of inner freedom ; albeit, in return, it also gives
him a pronounced power psychology.
396 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
( g ) James* seventh antithesis is Monism versus Pluralism.
It is at once intelligible from the foregoing argument
that the attitude orientated by the idea must tend towards
monism. The idea has always a hierarchical character,
whether it be gained by abstraction from representations
and concrete concepts, or whether it has an a priori
existence as unconscious form. In the former case it is
the highest point of the building which, in a sense, rounds
off and comprises everything subordinated to it; in the
latter, it is the unconscious law-giver, regulating the
possibilities and necessities of thought. The idea in both
instances has a ruling quality. Although a plurality of
ideas may be present, yet for a longer or shorter period
one idea gains the upper hand, constellating the majority
of the psychic elements in a monarchical fashion.
Conversely, it is equally clear that the attitude
orientated by the object must always incline to a majority
of principles (pluralism), since the multiplicity of objective
qualities entails also a plurality of concepts and principles
without which a suitable interpretation of the nature of
the object cannot be gained.
The monistic tendency belongs to the introverted
attitude, the pluralistic to the extraverted.
(A) The eighth antithesis is Dogmatism versus
Scepticism.
It is also easy to see in this case that dogmatism is
the attitude par excellence that follows and clings to the
idea, although an unconscious realization of the idea is not
eo ipso dogmatic. It is none the less true that the way in
which an unconscious idea is almost violently embodied
inevitably persuades one to believe that the man in whom
the idea is paramount starts out from a dogma in whose
rigid folds the material of experience is impressed. It is
self-evident that the attitude governed by the object must
have an a priori scepticism in relation to all ideas, since
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 397
its chief desire is that objective experience in general
should be allowed its say, undisturbed by universa
concepts. In this sense scepticism is an actually indis-
pensable pre-condition of all empiricism.
This pair of opposites also confirms the essential
similarity between James’ types and my own.
S. General Criticism of James’ Conception
In criticizing James’ conception, I must first lay stress
upon the fact that it is almost exclusively concerned with
the thinking qualities of the types. In a philosophical
work one could hardly expect otherwise. But such a
necessarily onesided setting readily gives rise to confusion.
For without difficulty one could demonstrate this or that
quality, or even a number of them, in the opposite type.
For example, there are empiricists who are dogmatic,
religious, idealistic, intellectualistic, and rationalistic ;
there are also ideologists who are materialistic, pessimistic,
deterministic, and irreligious. Even were one to show
that such expressions designate very complex matters in
which many diverse nuances are in question, the possibility
of confusion would not be remedied.
Taken individually, James’ expressions are too broad :
only in their totality do they give an approximate picture
of the typical contrast, without thereby bringing it to a
simple formula. In general, James’ types are a valuable
supplement to the picture of the types we have gained
from other sources. James was the first to indicate, with
a certain distinctness, the extraordinary importance of
temperament in the shaping of philosophical thinking, and
for this great credit is due. For the aim of his pragmatic
conception was to reconcile the antagonisms of philo-
sophical views resulting from temperamental differences.
Pragmatism, as we know, is a wide-spread philo-
398 TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
sophical current, originating in the English philosophy
(F. C. S. Schiller, of Oxford), which assigns a value to
“truth* that is restricted to its practical efficacy and
usefulness, quite unconcerned about its contestability from
this or that standpoint. It is characteristic that James
should introduce his presentation of this philosophical
view with just this very contrast of types, thus practically
establishing the necessity of a pragmatic point of view.
So the drama, which was already given us by the early
medieval psychology, is repeated. At that time the
opposition was worded: nominalism versus realism; and
it was Abelard who attempted the reconciliation in his
sermonism or conceptualism. But, since the understand-
ing of that day was entirely wanting in a psychological
point of view, his attempted solution turned out to be
correspondingly one-sided in its purely logical and intel-
lectual bias. James takes a deeper grasp; he conceives
the opposition psychologically, and, accordingly, attempts
a pragmatic solution. It would, however, be unwise to
cherish any illusions concerning the value of this solution ;
pragmatism is but a makeshift, which may claim to be
valid only so long as no further sources jure discovered
that could add fresh elements to the shaping of philo-
sophical view -points, other than the possibilities of
cognition which are shaped and coloured by temperament
Bergson certainly has pointed to intuition and the
possibility of an intuitive method. But it admittedly
remains merely an indication, A proof of the method is
lacking and will not be so easily forthcoming, although
Bergson may point to his concepts of “ £lan vital ” and
"durte cr^atrice ” as the results of intuition. Apart from
this intuitively conceived basic view, which derives its
psychological justification from the fact that, even in
antiquity, particularly with neo-platonism, it was already
a thoroughly familiar combination of ideas, the Bergson
TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 399
method is intellectual and not intuitive. Nietzsche made
use of the intuitive source in an incomparably greater
measure, and by so doing was able to free himself from
the purely intellectual in the shaping of his philosophical
ideas ; but he did this in such a way, and to such a degree,
that his intuitionism went far beyond the limits of a
philosophical system, and led him to an artistic creation, ie.
to something which, for the most part, is inaccessible to
philosophical criticism. I refer naturally to the Zarathustra ,
and not to the collection of philosophical aphorisms, which
offer themselves in the first place to philosophical criticism
by very reason of their prevailingly intellectualistic
method. If, therefore, one may speak at all . of an “ in-
tuitive method,” Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has, in my
opinion, furnished the best example of it; moreover,
it has strikingly demonstrated the possibility of a non-
intellectualistic, though none the less philosophical com-
prehension of the problem. Schopenhauer and Hegel
appear to be the forerunners of the Nietzschean intuitionism,
the former on account of the feeling-intuition which lends
such a decisive colouring to his views, and the latter by
virtue of the conceptual-intuition underlying his whole
system. With these two fore-runners — if one may use
such an expression — intuition ranked below the intellect,
but with Nietzsche it ranked above it
The opposition between the two ‘truths’ demands a
pragmatic attitude, if one desires to do any sort of
justice to the other standpoint. Yet, indispensable though
the pragmatic method may be, it presupposes too great
a resignation, thus becoming almost unavoidably bound
up with a lack of creativeness. But the solution of the
conflict of the opposites can proceed neither from a
logico-intellectual compromise as in conceptualism, nor
from a pragmatic estimation of the practical value of
logically irreconcilable views, but simply and solely from
4 oo TYPE-PROBLEM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
the positive creation which receives the opposites into
itself as necessary elements of co-ordination, just as a
co-ordinated muscular movement always involves the
innervation of antagonistic muscle groups.
Pragmatism, therefore, can only be a transitional
attitude that shall prepare the way for creation by the
elimination of prejudice. This new way, which pragmatism
prepares, and Bergson indicates, German philosophy —
not, of course, the academic schools — has, in my view,
already trodden: it was Nietzsche, with a violence
peculiarly his own, who burst open this closed door.
His creation leads far beyond the unsatisfying formula
of the pragmatic solution, and it has accomplished this
just as fundamentally, as the pragmatic recognition of the
living value of a truth transcends the arid one-sidedness
of the unconscious conceptualism of the post-Abdlardian
philosophy — and still there are heights to be scaled.
CHAPTER IX
THE TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
AS one might almost expect, the province of biography
also yields its contribution to the problem of psychological
types. Chiefly we have to thank the natural science
method of Wilhelm Ostwald 1 , who was able, by means
of a biographical comparison of certain outstanding
natural scientists, to establish a typical psychological
antithesis, which he termed the classic and romantic types*.
“While the former”, says Ostwald, “is characterized by
the well-rounded perfection of each individual achieve-
ment, and at the same time by a rather withdrawn nature
whose personal effect upon his environment is but slight,
the romanticist stands out by reason of the very opposite
characters. His quality lies not so much in the perfecting
of individual work as in the variety and telling originality
of numerous achievements that follow each other in rapid
succession; in addition, the effect he exercises upon his
contemporaries is, as a rule, immediate and impressive . . .
It must also be pointed out that the rapidity of mental
reaction is the decisive criterion of the particular type
to which the scientist belongs. Pioneers who possess
great reactive rapidity are the ‘romantics’, while those
with slower mental reactions are the ‘ classics ’ (pp. 44 ff.).
The classic produces slowly, as a rule, only bringing forth
the ripest fruit of his mind relatively late in life” (p. 89).
A never-failing characteristic of the classic type, according
to Ostwald, is the “ absolute need to stand without error
1 Ostwald, Gross e Manner , iii, iv (Leipzig, 1910) ; 1 l.c., p. 44.
401 O
402
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
or blemish in the public eye ” (p. 94). “ As a compensa-
tion for his lack of personal influence, the classic type
is assured an all the more potent effect with his writings ”
(p. 100).
This effect, however, seems also to be beset with
limitations, as the following case, quoted by Ostwald
from the biography of Helmholtz, testifies. A propos
Helmholtz’s mathematical researches concerning the effect
of induction-shocks, Du Bois-Raymond writes to the
scientist : “ You should devote yourself — and please don’t
take this amiss — much more carefully to the problem of
how to abstract yourself from your own standpoint of
science, so that you may understand the standpoint of
one who, as yet, knows nothing about the matter, or what
it is you want to discuss.” To which Helmholtz replies :
“ And as to the paper, I really took great pains this time
in the presentation of my material, and I imagined that,
at last, I might be satisfied with it.” Whereat Ostwald
observes : “ He is quite oblivious of the problem from the
reader’s point of view, because, true to his ‘ classic ’ type,
he is writing for himself, i.e. he presents the material in a
way that seems to him indisputable, while the rest do not
matter at all.” What Du Bois-Raymond writes in the
same letter to Helmholtz is extremely characteristic :
“ I have read both the treatise and the summary several
times without understanding what you have actually done,
or the way you did it. Finally, I myself discovered your
method, and I am now gradually beginning to understand
your presentation.”
For the classic type this case is true to the life, for
he seldom or never succeeds ‘in kindling souls of like
nature with his own ” (p. 100), a thoroughly typical event,
which shows that the influence ascribed to him through
writing is, as a rule, largely posthumous, i.e. it appears
only in the subsequent discovery of his writings, as in the
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY 403
case of Robert Mayer. Moreover, his writings often seem
to lack any convincing, inspiring, or directly personal
appeal, since, ultimately, writing is just as much a personal
expression as conversation or lecturing. The influence
the classic type transmits through writing depends not so
much, therefore, upon the externally stimulating qualities
of his writings as upon the circumstance that these are all
that finally remain of him, and that only from these can
the man’s actual achievement subsequently be recon-
structed. For it seems to be a fact, which is also alluded
to in Ostwald’s description, that the classic seldom com-
municates what he is doing and the way he does it, but
only what he arrives at, quite regardless of the fact that
his public possesses no inkling of his route. It would
seem that his way and method of work are of less
importance to the classic just because they are most
intimately linked up with his personality, which is some-
thing he always keeps in the background.
Ostwald compares his two types with the four ancient
temperaments (p 372) with special reference to the
peculiarity of slow or rapid reactions, which in his view
seems to be fundamental The slow reaction corresponds
with the phlegmatic and the melancholic temperaments,
the quick reaction with the sanguine and the choleric.
He regards the sanguine and the phlegmatic as the
normal middle types, whereas the choleric and the melan-
cholic seem to him morbid exaggerations of the basic
character.
If one glances through the biographies of Humphry
Davy and Liebig upon the one hand, and of Robert Mayer
and Faraday upon the other, one cannot but perceive that
the former are both distinctly "romantic” and sanguinely-
choleric, while the latter are just as clearly "classic” and
phlegmatically-melancholic. This observation of Ostwald’s
$eems to me entirely convincing, since the four antique
404
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
temperaments were most probably constructed from the
same principle of experience as that upon which Ostwald
has also established the classic and romantic types. The
four temperaments are obviously differentiated from the
standpoint of affectivity, ie. the manifest affective reactions.
This classification is, however, superficial from the psycho-
logical standpoint, for it judges exclusively from the outer
appearance. According to this ancient division, the man
whose behaviour is outwardly peaceful and inconspicuous
belongs to the phlegmatic temperament. He passes as
‘ phlegmatic ’, and is, thereupon, classified among the
phlegmatics. But, in reality, he may conceivably be all
this yet no ‘phlegmatic’, but on the contrary a deeply
sensitive, even passionate, nature, in whom emotion
pursues the inward course, wherewith the intensest inner
excitement expresses itself through the greatest outward
calm.
Jordan’s type-conception takes this fact into account.
He judges not merely from the surface impression, but
from a rather deeper grasp of human nature. Ostwald’s
fundamental marks of distinction, like the antique tempera-
mental divisions, depend chiefly upon the external impres-
sion. His romantic type is characterized by the presence
of a quick outward reaction. Whereas the classic type
reacts just as quickly maybe, but within.
As one reads the Ostwald biographies, one sees at
once that the romantic type corresponds with the extra-
vert, while the classic with the introvert. Humphry Davy
and Liebig are perfect examples of the extraverted type,
just as Robert Mayer and Faraday are model introverts
The outward reaction is characteristic of the extravert,
just as the inner reaction distinguishes the introvert.
The extravert has no especial difficulty in his personal
manifestations ; he asserts his presence almost involuntarily,
because in obedience to his whole nature he strives to
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
405
transvey himself into the object He easily gives himself
to the world about him, and in a form necessarily compre-
hensible and, therefore, acceptable to his world. The
form is, as a rule, pleasing, but, in any case, intelligible,
even when it is unpleasing. For, as a result of his quick
reaction and discharge, both valuable and worthless
contents will be transveyed into the object, winning
manners hand-in-hand with forbidding thoughts and
affects. But from this quick unloading and transference
there is less elaboration of his contents, which are, there-
fore, easy to understand; so that, even from the mere
fleeting apposition of immediate expressions, a shifting
succession of images is produced which clearly present to
the public eye the ways and means by which the in-
vestigator has attained his result.
The introvert, on the other hand, who reacts almost
entirely within, does not, as a rule, divest himself of his
reactions. (Affect-explosions excepted). He suppresses
his reactions, which, however, can be just as quick as those
of the extravert They do not play on the surface — hence
the introvert may easily give the impression of slowness.
Since immediate reactions are always strongly personal,
the extravert cannot choose but exhibit his personality.
The introvert, on the other hand, hides his personality,
because he suppresses his immediate reactions. * Feeling-
into ’ is not his aim, nor the transference of his contents
into the object, but rather abstraction from the object
Hence, instead of immediately divesting himself of his
reactions, he prefers to make a long internal elaboration
of them, before finally bringing forth a prepared result
His constant effort is to free his result, as far as possible,
from personal elements, to present it clearly differentiated
from every personal relation. His contents, the matured
fruit of prolonged inner labour, emerge into the outer
world in the rtiost completely abstracted and depersonalized
406 TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
form. Accordingly, they are also difficult to understand,
because the public lacks all knowledge of the preliminary
steps, or the kind of route by which the investigator reaches
his result. A personal relation to his public is also lacking,
because the introvert in suppressing himself shrouds his
personality from the public eye. But often enough it is
just the personal relationship which brings about the
understanding that was denied to mere intellectual appre-
hension. This circumstance must constantly be borne in
mind when judgment is made upon an introvert’s develop-
ment As a rule, one is ill-informed about the introvert;
because his real self is not visible. His incapacity for
immediate outward reactions occludes his personality.
Hence, to the public eye, his life provides ample scope for
the play of phantastic interpretations and projections,
should he ever chance — by virtue of his achievements — to
become the object, of general interest
The observation of Ostwald that “ early mental maturity
is characteristic of the romantic ”, needs, therefore, to be
somewhat modified. The romantic is certainly able to
display his prematurity, but the ‘ classic ’, although perhaps
equally mature, may conceal his products within himself,
not designedly of course, but from an inability for
immediate expression. As a result of deficient differentia-
tion of feeling, the introvert exhibits a certain awkward-
ness, a real infantilism in the personal relation, i.e. in that
element which the Englishman calls ‘personality’. His
personal manifestations are so uncertain and vague, and
he himself is so sensitive in this respect, that he dares to
reveal himself to his circle only with what, in his own eyes,
is an apparently finished product. He also prefers to let
his product speak for him, instead of personally interceding
on its behalf.
The natural result of such an attitude means a
considerably delayed appearance upon the World’s stage ;
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY 4°7
so frequently is this so, that the introvert might easily
be described as late in maturing. Such a superficial
judgment, however, wholly ignores the fact that the
infantilism of the seemingly early matured and outwardly
differentiated extravert is simply within, in his relation to
his inner world. In the early matured extravert this fact
is only subsequently revealed, in some moral immaturity,
for instance, or, as is so often the case, in an astonishing
infantilism of thought
As a rule, the romantic has more favourable oppor-
tunities for development and growth than the classic, a
fact which Ostwald justly observes. He makes a visible
and convincing appearance before his public, allowing his
personal importance to be recognized immediately through
his external reactions. In this way many valuable
relations are quickly established, which enrich his work
and give breadth (p. 374) to its development.
The classic, on the other hand, remains hidden; bis
lack of personal relations limits any extension of his
sphere of work, but thereby his activity gains in depth and
his labour has lasting value.
Both types possess enthusiasm , but, while that which
fills the extrovert's heart overflows from his mouth, the
introvert’s lips are sealed by the enthusiasm that moves
him within. Kindling no flame of enthusiasm in the world
about him, he even lacks a circle of colleagues of equal
calibre. Even had he, too, the impelling desire to impart
his knowledge, his laconic expression, as also the mystified
lack of comprehension it produces in his public, would
deter him from further communications; for it very
frequently happens that no one believes he has anything
extraordinary to give. His expression, his ‘personality’
appear commonplace to the superficial judgment, while not
infrequently the romantic immediately appears ‘interesting’
and understands the art of encouraging this impression by
408
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
every sort of means, whether permissible or not This
differentiated capacity for expression provides a suitable
background for impressive ideas, besides being an accom-
modating assistance in helping the deficient understanding
of his public over the interstices of his thinking.
Ostwald’s emphasis upon the successful and brilliant
academic activities of the romantic is, therefore, entirely
expressive of this type. The romantic feels himself into
his pupils and knows the right word at the right moment.
But the classic is held to his own thoughts and problems,
and thus is blind to his pupils* difficulties in understanding.
Speaking of the classic Helmholtz, Ostwald remarks
(p- 3 77 ) :
“ In spite of his prodigious learning, comprehensive experience,
and richly creative mind, he was never a good teacher: his
reactions never came instantaneously, but only after a certain
lapse of time. Confronted by a pupil's question in the laboratory,
he would promise to think it over, and only after several days
would he bring the answer ; this turned out to be so remote from
the situation of the pupil that only in the rarest cases was it
possible for the latter to discover any connection between the
difficulty he had felt and the well-rounded theory of a general
problem subsequently expounded by the teacher. Thus, not
only was the immediate help lacking upon which every beginner
very largely relies, but also that guidance commensurate with the
pupil's personality by which he may gradually develop from the
natural dependence of the beginner to the complete mastery
of his diosen branch of science. All such defects have their
immediate source in the inability of the teacher to react directly
as the need of the pupil presents itself, his reactions demanding
so much time for their expected and desired operation that their
very effect is lost."
Ostwald’s explanation of this as the result of the
slowness of the introvert’s reaction seems to me inadequate.
There is no sort of proof that Helmholtz possessed a low
reactive rapidity. He merely reacted inwardly rather
than outwardly. Because the pupil wsys not felt-into, as
it were, the latter’s need was dark to him. His attitude
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY 4°9
is wholly bent upon his thoughts; hence instead of the
personal wish of the pupil, he reacts to the thoughts the
pupil’s question has excited in himself, and this he does so
rapidly and fundamentally that he at once divines a further
connection which, at the moment, he is incapable of
appraising and rendering back in an abstract and finely
elaborated form. This is not because his thinking is
too slow, but because it is objectively impossible to seize
in a moment the entire dimensions of the problem divined
and give it a ready formula. Naturally, not observing
that the pupil has no inkling of such a problem he firmly
believes he has an important problem to deal with, and not
merely an extremely simple and, to him, trivial piece of
advice which could be given in a moment, if only he could
allow himself to see what the pupil was waiting for to
enable him to get on with his work. But as an introvert
he has not felt-into the other’s psychology ; he has only
felt-into his own theoretical problems, his inner world,
where he goes on spinning the threads of the theoretical
problem taken from the pupil — threads which are certainly
germane to the problem but not to the pupil’s momentary
need. Naturally, from the academic standpoint, this
peculiar attitude of the introverted teacher is very
unsuitable, quite apart from the unfavourable personal
impression it engenders. He gives an impression of
slowness, singularity, even thiok-headedness ; on which
account he is very often under-estimated, not only by
the larger public but also by his own smaller circle of
colleagues, until one day his work and ideas are eventu-
ally followed up, elaborated, and translated by later
investigators.
Gauss, the mathematician, had such a distaste for teach-
ing that he informed each individual student who reported
himself that, in all probability, his course of lectures would
not take place, hoping by this means to unburden himself
O*
4io
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY
of the necessity of giving them. That teaching was so
painful to him, as Ostwald justly observes, lay in the
“ necessity of pronouncing definite scientific results in his
lectures without having previously established and elabor-
ated every detail of the text To be obliged to com-
municate his results to others without such elaboration
may have felt to him as though he were exhibiting himself
before strangers in his night-shirt” (p. 380). With this
observation Ostwald touches a very essential point, namely
the above-mentioned disinclination of the introvert, for any
part of himself, other than quite impersonal communica-
tions, to reach the surrounding world.
Ostwald emphasizes the fact that, as a rule, the romantic
is compelled to bring his career to a close at a compara-
tively early stage on account of increasing exhaustion.
He is also disposed to attribute this fact to his greater
reactive rapidity. Since this concept of mental reactive
rapidity is, in my view, still remote from the region of
scientific fact, and since no proof is, as yet, forthcoming,
neither is it susceptible of proof that the external reaction
takes place more rapidly than the internal, it seems to me
that the earlier exhaustion of the extraverted discoverer
must be essentially related to the external reaction peculiar
to his type. He begins to publish very early, becomes
rapidly famous, and soon develops an intensive activity,
both academically and as a publicist ; he cultivates personal
relationships among a very wide circle of friends and
acquaintances and, in addition to all this, he takes an
unusual interest in the development of his pupils. The
introverted pioneer begins to publish later; his works
succeed one another at longer intervals, and are mostly
sparing in expression ; repetitions of a theme are avoided*
except where something entirely new can be brought
into them. The pithy and laconic style of his scientific
communications, which frequently omit all information
TYPE-PROBLEM IN BIOGRAPHY 411
concerning the way he has traversed or the material
elaborated, hinders any general understanding or acceptance
of his works ; and so he remains unknown. His distaste
for teaching does not bring him pupils; he is so little
known that any relations with a larger circle of acquain-
tances is precluded ; as a rule, therefore, he lives a retired
life, not from necessity merely but also from choice.
Thus he escapes the danger of spending himself too
lavishly. His inner reactions lead him constantly back
to the circumscribed tracts of his research activities ; these
in themselves are very exacting, proving as time goes on
so deeply exhausting as to permit of no incidental expendi-
ture of energy on behalf of acquaintances or pupils. There
is the additional circumstance that the manifest success of
the romantic is also a vitalizing and invigorating factor,
but this is very often denied the classic, so that he is
forced to seek his only satisfaction in the perfecting of his
work of research. In the light of these considerations, the
relatively premature exhaustion of the romantic genius
seems to me to depend more upon the external reaction
than upon the higher reactive rapidity.
Ostwald does not regard his type division as absolute,
in the sense that every investigator can be shown forthwith
to belong to one or other type. He is, however, of the
opinion “that the really great men" can generally be
included quite definitely in one or other end-group, while
the “average people ” much more frequently represent the
middle position in respect to reactive rapidity (pp. 372 ff.).
In conclusion, I would like to observe that the Ostwald
biographies contain material which though partial, has
a very valuable bearing on the psychology of the types,
and strikingly exhibits the coincidence of the romantic
with the extraverted type, and the classic with the
introverted.
CHAPTER X
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TYPES
A. INTRODUCTION
IN the following pages I shall attempt a general
description of the types, and my first concern must be
with the two general types I have termed introverted and
extraverted. But, in addition, I shall also try to give a
certain characterization of those special types whose
particularity is due to the fact that his most differentiated
function plays the principal r61e in an individual’s adapta-
tion or orientation to life. The former I would term
general attitude types, since they are distinguished by the
direction of general interest or libido movement, while the
latter I would call junction-types.
The general-attitude types, as I have pointed out
more than once, are differentiated by their particular
attitude to the object The introvert’s attitude to the
object is an abstracting one; at bottom, he is always
facing the problem of how libido can be withdrawn
from the object, as though an attempted ascendancy on
the part of the object had to be continually frustrated.
The extravert, on the contrary, maintains a positive
relation to the object. To such an extent does he affirm
its importance that his subjective attitude is continually
being orientated by, and related to the object. Au fond,
the object can never have sufficient value; for him,
therefore, its importance must always be paramount.
The two types are so essentially different, presenting
so striking a contrast, that their existence, even to the
411
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 413
uninitiated in psychological matters becomes an obvious
fact, when once attention has been drawn to it. Who
does not know those taciturn, impenetrable, often shy
natures, who form such a vivid contrast to these other
open, sociable, serene maybe, or at least friendly and
accessible characters, who are on good terms with all
the world, or, even when disagreeing with it, still hold
a relation to it by which they and it are mutually
affected.
Naturally, at first, one is inclined to regard such differ-
ences as mere individual idiosyncrasies. But anyone with
the opportunity of gaining a fundamental knowledge of
many men will soon discover that such a far-reaching con-
trast does not merely concern the individual case, but is
a question of typical attitudes, with a universality far
greater than a limited psychological experience would at
first assume. In reality, as the preceding chapters will
have shown, it is a question of a fundamental opposition;
at times clear and at times obscure, but always emerging
whenever we are dealing with individuals whose personality
is in any way pronounced. Such men are found not only
among the educated classes, but in every rank of society ;
with equal distinctness, therefore, our types can be demon-
strated among labourers and peasants as among the most
differentiated members of a nation. Furthermore, these
types over-ride the distinctions of sex, since one finds the
same contrasts amongst women of all classes. Such a
universal distribution could hardly arise at the instigation
of consciousness, i.e . as the result of a conscious and
deliberate choice of attitude. If this were the case, a
definite level of society, linked together by a similar educa-
tion and environment and, therefore, correspondingly local-
ized, would surely have a majority representation of such
an attitude. But the actual facts are just the reverse, for
the types have, apparently, quite a random distribution.
414
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
In the same family one child is introverted, and another
extraverted.
Since, in the light of these facts, the attitude-type,
regarded as a general phenomenon having an apparently
random distribution, can be no affair of conscious judgment
or intention, its existence must be due to some unconscious,
instinctive cause. The contrast of types, therefore, as a
universal psychological phenomenon, must in some way
or other have its biological precursor.
The relation between subject and object, considered
biologically, is always a relation of adaptation , , since every
relation between subject and object presupposes mutually
modifying effects from either side. These modifications
constitute the adaptation. The typical attitudes to the
object, therefore, are adaptation processes. Nature knows
two fundamentally different ways of adaptation, which
determine the further existence of the living organism;
the one is by increased fertility, accompanied by a relatively
small degree of defensive power and individual conserva-
tion; the other is by individual equipment of manifold
means of self-protection, coupled with a relatively in-
significant fertility. This biological contrast seems not
merely to be the analogue, but also the general foundation
of our two psychological modes of adaptation. At this
point a mere general indication must suffice ; on the one
hand, I need only point to the peculiarity of the extravert,
which constantly urges him to spend and propagate him-
self in every way, and, on the other, to the tendency of the
introvert to defend himself against external claims, to
conserve himself from any expenditure of energy directly
related to the object, thus consolidating for himself the
most secure and impregnable position.
Blake’s intuition did not err when he described the
two forms as the “ prolific ” and the " devouring ” \ As is
1 William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 415
shown by the general biological example, both forms are
current and successful after their kind ; this is equally true
of the typical attitudes. What the one brings about by a
multiplicity of relations, the other gains by monopoly.
The fact that often in their earliest years children
display an unmistakable typical attitude forces us to
assume that it cannot possibly be the struggle for exist-
ence, as it is generally understood, which constitutes the
compelling factor in favour of a definite attitude. We
might, however, demur, and indeed with cogency, that even
the tiny infant, the very babe at the breast, has already
an unconscious psychological adaptation to perform, inas-
much as the special character of the maternal influence
leads to specific reactions in the child. This argument,
though appealing to incontestable facts, has none the less
to yield before the equally unarguable fact that two children
of the same mother may at a very early age exhibit opposite
types, without the smallest accompanying change in the
attitude of the mother Although nothing would induce
me to underestimate the well-nigh incalculable importance
of parental influence, this experience compels me to con-
clude that the decisive factor must be looked for in the
disposition of the child The fact that, in spite of the greatest
possible similarity of external conditions, one child will
assume this type while another that, must, of course, in
the last resort he ascribed to individual disposition.
Naturally in saying this I only refer to those cases which
occur under normal conditions. Under abnormal condi-
tions, i.e. when there is an extreme and, therefore, abnormal
attitude in the mother, the children can also be coerced into
a relatively similar attitude ; but this entails a violation of
their individual disposition, which quite possibly would have
assumed another type if no abnormal and disturbing
external influence had intervened. As a rule, whenever
such a falsification of type takes place as a result of external
416 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
influence, the individual becomes neurotic later, and a cure
can successfully be sought only in a development of that
attitude which corresponds with the individual’s natural way.
As regards the particular disposition, I know not what
to say, except that there are clearly individuals who have
either a greater readiness and capacity for one way, or
for whom it is more congenial to adapt to that way rather
than the other. In the last analysis it may well be that
physiological causes, inaccessible to our knowledge, play
a part in this. That this may be the case seems to me
not improbable, in view of one’s experience that a reversal
of type often proves exceedingly harmful to the physio-
logical well-being of the organism, often provoking an
acute state of exhaustion.
B. The Extroverted Type
In our descriptions of this and the following type it
will be necessary, in the interest of lucid and compre-
hensive presentation, to discriminate between the conscious
and unconscious psychology. Let us first lend our minds
to a description of the phenomena of consciousness.
(I) THE GENERAL ATTITUDE OF
CONSCIOUSNESS
Everyone is, admittedly, orientated by the data with
which the outer world provides him ; yet we see that this
may be the case in a way that is only relatively decisive.
Because it is cold out of doors, one man is persuaded
to wear his overcoat, another from a desire to become
hardened finds this unnecessary; one man admires the
new tenor because all the world admires him, another
withholds his approbation not because he dislikes him but
because in his view the subject of general admiration
is not thereby proved to be admirable; one submits to
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 417
a given state of affairs because his experience argues
nothing else to be possible, another is convinced that,
although it has repeated itself a thousand times in the
same way, the thousand and first will be different. The
former is orientated by the objective data; the latter
reserves a view, which is, as it were, interposed between
himself and the objective fact Now, when the orientation
to the object and to objective facts is so predominant that
the most frequent and essential decisions and actions are
determined, not by subjective values but by objective
relations, one speaks of an extraverted attitude. When
this is habitual, one speaks of an extraverted type. If a
man so thinks, feels, and acts, in a word so lives, as to
correspond directly with objective conditions and their
claims, whether in a good sense or ill, he is extraverted.
His life makes it perfectly clear that it is the objective
rather than the subjective value which plays the greater
rdle as the determining factor of his consciousness. He
naturally has subjective values, but their determining
power has less importance than the external objective
conditions. Never, therefore, does he expect to find any
absolute factors in his own inner life, since the only ones
he knows are outside himself. Epimetheus-like, his inner
life succumbs to the external necessity, not of course
without a struggle ; which, however, always ends in favour
of the objective determinant. His entire consciousness
looks outwards to the world, because the important and
decisive determination always comes to him from without.
But it comes to him from without, only because that is
where he expects it. All the distinguishing characteristics
of his psychology, in so far as they do not arise from the
priority of one definite psychological function or from
individual peculiarities, have their origin in this basic
attitude. Interest aaA attention follow objective happenings
and, primarily, those of the immediate environment. Not
4 i8 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
only persons, but things, seize and rivet his interest. His
actions , therefore, are also governed by the influence of
persons and things. They are directly related to objective
data and determinations, and are, as it were, exhaustively
explainable on these grounds. Extraverted action is
recognizably related to objective conditions. In so far as
it is not purely reactive' to environmental stimuli, its
character is constantly applicable to the actual circum-
stances, and it finds adequate and appropriate play within
the limits of the objective situation. It has no serious
tendency to transcend these bounds. The same holds
good for" interest : objective occurrences have a well-nigh
inexhaustible charm, so that in the normal course the
extravert’s interest makes no other claims.
The moral laws which govern his action coincide with
the corresponding claims of society, z\e. with the generally
valid moral view-point If the generally valid view were
different, the subjective moral guiding line would also be
different, without the general psychological habitus being
in any way changed. It might almost seem, although it
is by no means the case, that this rigid determination by
objective factors would involve an altogether ideal and
complete adaptation to general conditions of life. An
accommodation to objective data, such as we have described,
must, of course, seem a complete adaptation to the extra-
verted view, since from this standpoint no other criterion
exists. But from a higher point of view, it is by no
means granted that the standpoint of objectively given
facts is the normal one under all circumstances. Objective
conditions may be either temporarily or locally abnormal.
An individual who is accommodated to such conditions
certainly conforms to the abnormal style of his surround-
ings, but, in relation to the universally valid laws of life,
he is, in common with his milieu, in an abnormal position.
The individual may, however, thrive in such surroundings,
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
419
but only to the point when he, together with his whole
milieu, is destroyed for transgressing the universal laws
of life. He must inevitably participate in this down-
fall with the same completeness as he was previously
adjusted to the objectively valid situation. He is adjusted,
but not adapted, since adaptation demands more than a
mere frictionless participation in the momentary conditions
of the immediate environment (Once more I would
point to Spitteler’s Epimetheus). Adaptation demands
an observance of laws far more universal in their applica-
tion than purely local and temporary conditions. Mere
adjustment is the limitation of the normal extraverted
type. On the one hand, the extravert owes his normality
to his ability to fit into existing conditions with relative
ease. He naturally pretends to nothing more than the
satisfaction of existing objective possibilities, applying
himself, for instance, to the calling which offers sound
prospective possibilities in the actual situation in time
and place. He tries to do or to make just what his
milieu momentarily needs and expects from him, and
abstains from every innovation that is not entirely obvious,
or that in any way exceeds the expectation of those
around him. But on the other hand, his normality must
also depend essentially upon whether the extravert takes
into account the actuality of his subjective needs and
requirements; and this is just his weak point, for the
tendency of his type has such a strong outward direc-
tion that even the most obvious of all subjective
facts, namely the condition of his own body, may quite
easily receive inadequate consideration. The body is not
sufficiently objective or * external/ so that the satisfaction
of simple elementary requirements which are indispensable
to physical well-being are no longer given their place.
The body accordingly suffers, to say nothing of the soul.
Although, as a rule, the extravert takes small note of
420
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
this latter circumstance, his intimate domestic circle
perceives it all the more keenly. His loss of equilibrium
is perceived by himself only when abnormal bodily
sensations make themselves felt.
These tangible facts he cannot ignore. It is natural
he should regard them as concrete and c objective ’, since
for his mentality there exists only this and nothing more
— in himself. In others he at once sees “ imagination ” at
work. A too extraverted attitude may actually become
so regardless of the subject that the latter is entirely
sacrificed to so-called objective claims; to the demands,
for instance, of a continually extending business, because
orders lie claiming one’s attention or because profitable
possibilities are constantly being opened up which must
instantly be seized.
This is the extravert’s danger ; he becomes caught up
in objects, wholly losing himself in their toils. The
functional (nervous) or actual physical disorders which
result from this state have a compensatory significance,
forcing the subject to an involuntary self-restriction.
Should the symptoms be functional, their peculiar forma-
tion may symbolically express the psychological situation ;
a singer, for instance, whose fame quickly reaches a danger-
ous pitch tempting him to a disproportionate outlay of
energy, is suddenly robbed of his high tones by a nervous
inhibition. A man of very modest beginnings rapidly
reaches a social position of great influence and wide
prospects, when suddenly he is overtaken by a psycho-
genic state, with all the symptoms of mountain-sickness.
Again, a man on the point of marrying an idolized woman of
doubtful character, whose value he extravagantly over-esti-
mates, is seized with a spasm of the oesophagus, which forces
him to a regimen of two cups of milk in the day, demand-
ing his three-hourly attention. All visits to his fiancee
are thus effectually stopped, and no choice is left to him
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 421
but to busy himself with his bodily nourishment. A
man who through his own energy and enterprise has
built up a vast business, entailing an intolerable burden
of work, is afflicted by nervous attacks of thirst, as a
result of which he speedily falls a victim to hysterical
alcoholism.
Hysteria is, in my view, by far the most frequent
neurosis with the extraverted type. The classical example
of hysteria is always characterized by an exaggerated
rapport with the members of his circle, and a frankly
imitatory accommodation to surrounding conditions. A
constant tendency to appeal for interest and to produce
impressions upon his milieu is a basic trait of the hysterical
nature. A correlate to this is his 'proverbial suggestibility,
his pliability to another person’s influence. Unmistak-
able extraversion comes out in the communicativeness of
1
the hysteric, which occasionally leads to the divulging of
purely phantastic contents ; whence arises the reproach of
the hysterical lie.
To begin with, the ‘ hysterical ’ character is an exaggera-
tion of the normal attitude; it is then complicated by
compensatory reactions from the side of the unconscious,
which manifests its opposition to the extravagant extra-
version in the form of physical disorders, whereupon
an introversion of psychic energy becomes unavoidable.
Through this reaction of the unconscious, another cate-
gory of symptoms arises which have a more introverted
character. A morbid intensification of phantasy activity
belongs primarily to this category. From this general
characterization of the extraverted attitude, let us now
turn to a description of the modifications, which the
basic psychological functions undergo as a result of this
attitude.
422
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
(II) THE ATTITUDE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
It may perhaps seem odd that I should speak of an
1 attitude of the unconscious ’. As I have already sufficiently
indicated, I regard the relation of the unconscious to the
conscious as compensatory. The unconscious, according
to this view, has as good a claim to an ‘ attitude ’ as the
conscious.
In the foregoing section I emphasized the tendency to
a certain one-sidedness in the extraverted attitude, due to
the controlling power of the objective factor in the course
of psychic events. The extraverted type is constantly
tempted to give himself away (apparently) in favour of
the object, and to assimilate his subject to the object
I have referred in detail to the ultimate consequences of
this exaggeration of the extraverted attitude, viz. to the
injurious suppression of the subjective factor. It is only
to be expected, therefore, that a psychic compensation oi
the conscious extraverted attitude will lay especial weight
upon the subjective factor, i.e. we shall have to prove a
strong egocentric tendency in the unconscious. Practical
experience actually furnishes this proof. I do not wish
to enter into a casuistical survey at this point, so must
refer my readers to the ensuing sections, where I shall
attempt to present the characteristic attitude of the un-
conscious from the angle of each function-type. In this
section we are merely concerned with the compensation
of a general extraverted attitude ; I shall, therefore, confine
mysdf to an equally general characterization of the com-
pensating attitude of the unconscious.
The attitude of the unconscious as an effective com-
plement to the conscious extraverted attitude has a
definitely introverting character. It focusses libido upon
the subjective factor, i.e. all those needs and claims which
are stifled or repressed by a too extraverted conscious
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 4*3
attitude. It may be readily gathered from what has been
said in the previous section that a purely objective
orientation does violence to a multitude of subjective
emotions, intentions, needs, and desires, since it robs them
of the energy which is their natural right Man is not a
machine that one can reconstruct as occasion demands,
upon other lines and for quite other ends, in the hope
that it will then proceed to function, in a totally different
way, just as normally as before. Man bears his age-long
history with him; in his very structure is written the
history of mankind.
The historical factor represents a vital need, to which
a wise economy must respond. Somehow the past must
become vocal, and participate in the present Complete
assimilation to the object, therefore, encounters the protest
of the suppressed minority, elements belonging to the
past and existing from, the beginning. From this quite
general consideration it may be understood why it is that
the unconscious claims of the extraverted type have an
essentially primitive, infantile, and egoistical character.
When Freud says that the unconscious is “ only able to
wish”, this observation contains a large measure of truth
for the unconscious of the extraverted type. Adjustment
and assimilation to objective data prevent inadequate
subjective impulses from reaching consciousness. These
tendencies (thoughts, wishes, affects, needs, feelings,, etc.)
take on a regressive character corresponding with the
degree of their repression, i,e . the less they are recognized,
the more infantile and archaic they become. The conscious
attitude robs them of their relatively disposable energy-
charge, only leaving them the energy of which it cannot
deprive them. This remainder, which still possesses a
potency not to be under-estimated, can be described only
as primeval instinct Instinct can never be rooted out
from an individual by any arbitrary measures ; it requires
424 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
the slow, organic transformation of many generations to
effect a radical change, for instinct is the energic expression
of a definite organic foundation.
Thus with every repressed tendency a considerable
sum of energy ultimately remains. This sum corresponds
with the potency of the instinct and guards its effective-
ness, notwithstanding the deprivation of energy which
made it unconscious. The measure of extraversion in the
conscious attitude entails a like degree of infantilism and
archaism in the attitude of the unconscious. The egoism
which so often characterizes the extravert’s unconscious
attitude goes far beyond mere childish selfishness ; it even
verges upon the wicked and brutal. It is here we find in
fullest bloom that incest-wish described by Freud. It is
self-evident that these things are entirely unconscious,
remaining altogether hidden from the eyes of the un-
initiated observer so long as the extraversion of the
conscious attitude does not reach an extreme stage. But
wherever an exaggeration of the conscious standpoint
takes place, the unconscious also comes to light in a
symptomatic form, i.e. the unconscious egoism, infantilism,
and archaism lose their original compensatory characters,
and appear in more or less open opposition to the
conscious attitude. This process begins in the form of an
absurd exaggeration of the conscious standpoint, which is
aimed at a further repression of the unconscious, but
usually ends in a reductio ad absurdum of the conscious
attitude, i.e. a collapse. The catastrophe may be an objec-
tive one, since the objective aims gradually become
falsified by the subjective. I remember the case of a
printer who, starting as a mere employ^, worked his way
up through two decades of hard struggle, till at last he
was the independent possessor of a very extensive business.
The more the business extended, the more it increased
its hold upon him, until gradually every other interest
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 425
was allowed to become merged in it. At length he was
completely enmeshed in its toils, and, as we shall soon
see, this surrender eventually proved his ruin. As a sort
of compensation to his exclusive interest in the business,
certain memories of his childhood came to life. As a
child he had taken great delight in painting and drawing.
But, instead of renewing this capacity for its own sake as
a balancing side-interest, he canalized it into his business
and began to conceive ‘artistic’ elaborations of his
products. His phantasies unfortunately materialized: he
actually began to produce after his own primitive and
infantile taste, with the result that after a very few years
his business went to pieces. He acted in obedience to one
of our ‘ civilized ideals ’, which enjoins the energetic man
to concentrate everything upon the one end in view. But
he went too far, and merely fell a victim to the power of
his subjective infantile claims.
But the catastrophic solution may also be subjective,
i.e. in the form of a nervous collapse. Such a solution
always comes about as a result of the unconscious counter-
influence, which can ultimately paralyse conscious action.
In which case the claims of the unconscious force them-
selves categorically upon consciousness, thus creating a
calamitous cleavage which generally reveals itself in two
ways : either the subject no longer knows what he really
wants and nothing any longer interests him, or he wants
too much at once and has too keen an interest — but in
impossible things. The suppression of infantile and
primitive claims, which is often necessary on “civilized”
grounds, easily leads to neurosis, or to the misuse of
narcotics such as alcohol, morphine, cocaine, etc. In more
extreme cases the cleavage ends in suicide.
It is a salient peculiarity of unconscious tendencies
that, just in so far as they are deprived of their energy by
a lack of conscious recognition , they assume a correspond-
426 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
ingly destructive character, and as soon as this happens
their compensatory function ceases. They cease to have
a compensatory effect as soon as they reach a depth or
stratum that corresponds with a level of culture absolutely
incompatible with our own. From this moment the un-
conscious tendencies form a block, which is opposed to
the conscious attitude in every respect; such a block
inevitably leads to open conflict
In a general way, the compensating attitude of the
unconscious finds expression in the process of psychic
equilibrium. A normal extraverted attitude does not, of
course, mean that the individual behaves invariably in
accordance with the extraverted schema. Even in the
same individual many psychological happenings may be
observed, in which the mechanism of introversion is con-
cerned. A habitus can be called extraverted only when
the mechanism of extraversion predominates. In such a
case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly
extraverted application, while the inferior functions are
found in the service of introversion, i.e. the more valued
function, because the more conscious, is more completely
subordinated to conscious control and purpose, whilst the
less conscious, in other words, the partly unconscious
inferior functions are subjected to conscious free choice
in a much smaller degree.
The superior function is always the expression of the
conscious personality, its aim, its will, and its achievement,
whilst the inferior functions belong to the things that
happen to one. Not that they merely beget blunders, e.g.
lapsus linguae or lapsus calami, but they may also breed
half or three-quarter resolves, since the inferior functions
also possess a slight degree of consciousness. The extra-
verted feeling type is a classical example of this, for he
enjoys an excellent feeling rapport with his entourage,
yet occasionally opinions of an incomparable tactlessness
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 427
will just happen to him. These opinions have their source
in his inferior and subconscious thinking, which is only
partly subject to control and is insufficiently related to the
object ; to a large extent, therefore, it can operate without
consideration or responsibility.
In the extraverted attitude the inferior functions always
reveal a highly subjective determination with pronounced
egocentridty and personal bias, thus demonstrating their
close connection with the unconscious. Through their
agency the unconscious is continually coming to light.
On no account should we imagine that the unconscious
lies permanently buried under so many overlying strata
that it can only be uncovered, so to speak, by a laborious
process of excavation. On the contrary, there is a constant
influx of the unconscious into the conscious psychological
process ; at times this reaches such a pitch that the observer
can decide only with difficulty which character-traits are
to be ascribed to the conscious, and which to the uncon*
scious personality. This difficulty occurs mainly with
persons whose habit of expression errs rather on the side
of profuseness. Naturally it depends very largely also
upon the attitude of the observer, whether he lays hold of
the conscious or the unconscious character of a personality.
Speaking generally a judging observer will tend to seize
the conscious character, while a perceptive observer will be
influenced more by the unconscious character, since judg-
ment is chiefly interested in the conscious motivation of
the psychic process, while perception tends to register the
mere happening. But in so far as we apply perception
and judgment in equal measure, it may easily happen that
a personality appears to us as both introverted and extra-
verted, so that we cannot at once decide to which attitude
the superior function belongs. In such cases only a thorough
analysis of the function qualities can help us to a sound
opinion. During the analysis we must observe which
428 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
function is placed under the control and motivation of
consciousness, and which functions have an accidental and
spontaneous character. The former is always more highly
differentiated than the latter, which also possess many
infantile and primitive qualities. Occasionally the former
function gives the impression of normality, while the latter
have something abnormal or pathological about them.
(Ill) THE PECULIARITIES OF THE BASIC PSYCHO-
LOGICAL FUNCTIONS IN THE EXTRA VERTED
ATTITUDE
1. Thinking
As a result of the general attitude of extraversion, think-
ing is orientated by the object and objective data. This
orientation of thinking produces a noticeable peculiarity.
Thinking in general is fed from two sources, firstly
from subjective and in the last resort unconscious roots,
and secondly from objective data transmitted through
sense perceptions.
Extraverted thinking is conditioned in a larger measure
by these latter factors than by the former. Judgment
always presupposes a criterion ; for the extraverted judg-
ment, the valid and determining criterion is the standard
taken from objective conditions, no matter whether this
be directly represented by an objectively perceptible fact,
or expressed in an objective idea ; for an objective idea,
even when subjectively sanctioned, is equally external
and objective in origin. Extraverted thinking, therefore,
need not necessarily be a merely concretistic thinking
it may equally well be a purely ideal thinking, if, for
instance, it can be shown that the ideas with which it is
engaged are to a great extent borrowed from without, i.e.
are transmitted by tradition and education. The criterion
of judgment, therefore, as to whether or no a thinking
is extraverted, hangs directly upon the question: by
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 4*9
which standard is its judgment governed — is it furnished
from without, or is its origin subjective? A further
criterion is afforded by the direction of the thinker’s con-
clusion, namely, whether or no the thinking has a pre-
ferential direction outwards. It is no proof of its extra-
verted nature that it is preoccupied with concrete objects,
since I may be engaging my thoughts with a concrete
object, either because I am abstracting my thought from
it or because I am concretizing my thought with it. Even
if I engage my thinking with concrete things, and to that
extent could be described as extraverted, it yet remains
both questionable and characteristic as regards the direc-
tion my thinking will take ; namely, whether in its further
course it leads back again to objective data, external facts,
and generally accepted ideas, or not. So far as the
practical thinking of the merchant, the engineer, or the
natural science pioneer is concerned, the objective direc-
tion is at once manifest. But in the case of a philosopher
it is open to doubt, whenever the course of his thinking
is directed towards ideas. In such a case, before deciding,
we must further enquire whether these ideas are mere
abstractions from objective experience, in which case they
would merely represent higher collective concepts, com-
prising a sum of objective facts ; or whether (if they are
clearly not abstractions from immediate experience) they
may not be derived from tradition or borrowed from the
intellectual atmosphere of the time. In the latter event,
such ideas must also belong to the category of objective
data, in which case this thinking should also be called
extraverted.
Although I do not propose to present the nature of
introverted thinking at this point, reserving it for a later
section, it is, however, essential that I should make a few
statements about it before going further. For if one
considers strictly what I have just said concerning
430
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
extraverted thinking, one might easily conclude that such
a statement includes everything that is generally under-
stood as thinking. It might indeed be argued that a
thinking whose aim is concerned neither with objective
facts nor with general ideas scarcely merits the name
f thinking \ I am fully aware of the fact that the thought
of our age, in common with its most eminent represent-
atives, knows and acknowledges only the extraverted type
of thinking. This is partly due to the tact tnat all
thinking which attains visible form upon the world’s
surface, whether as science, philosophy, pr even art, either
proceeds direct from objects or flows into general ideas.
On either ground, although not always completely evident
it at least appears essentially intelligible, and therefore
relatively valid. In this sense it might be said that the
extraverted intellect, i.e. the mind that is orientated by
objective data, is actually the only one recognized.
There is also, however — and now I come to the question
of the introverted intellect — an entirely different kind of
thinking, to which the term “thinking” can hardly be
denied: it is a kind that is neither orientated by the
immediate objective experience nor is it concerned with
general and objectively derived ideas. I reach this other
kin d of thinking in the following way. When my thoughts
are engaged with a concrete object or general idea in such
a way that the course of my thinking eventually leads me
back again to my object, this intellectual process is not the
only psychic proceeding taking place in me at the moment
I will disregard all those possible sensations and feelings
which become noticeable as a more or less disturbing
accompaniment to my train of thought, merely emphasizing
the fact that this very thinking process which proceeds
from objective data and strives again towards the object
stands also in a constant relation to the subject This
relation is a conditio sine qua non, without which no think-
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 431
ing process whatsoever could take place. Even though
my thinking process is directed, as far as possible, towards
objective data, nevertheless it is my subjective process, and
it can neither escape the subjective admixture nor yet
dispense with it. Although I try my utmost to give a
completely objective direction to my train of thought, even
then I cannot exclude the parallel subjective process with
its all-embracing participation, without extinguishing the
very spark of life from my thought. This parallel sub-
jective process has a natural tendency, only relatively
avoidable, to subjectify objective facts, i.*. to assimilate
them to the subject
Whenever the chief value is given to the subjective
process, that other kind of thinking arises which stands
opposed to\ extraverted thinking, namely, that purely sub-
jective orientation of thought which I have termed intro-
verted. A thinking arises from this other orientation that
is neither determined by objective facts nor directed
towards objective data — a thinking, therefore, that pro-
ceeds from subjective data and is directed towards sub-
jective ideas or facts of a subjective character. I do not
wish to enter more fully into this kind of thinking here ;
I have merely established its existence for the purpose of
giving a necessary complement to the extraverted thinking
process, whose nature is thus brought to a clearer focus.
When the objective orientation receives a certain pre-
dominance, the thinking is extraverted. This circumstance
changes nothing as regards the logic of thought — it merely
determines that difference between thinkers which James
regards as a matter of temperament. The orientation
towards the object, as already explained, makes no
essential change in the thinking function ; only its appear-
ance is altered. Since it is governed by objective data,
it has the appearance of being captivated by the object, as
though without the external orientation it simply could not
432 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
exist. Almost it seems as though it were a sequela of
external facts, or as though it could reach its highest point
only when chiming in with some generally valid idea. It
seems constantly to be affected by objective data, drawing
only those conclusions which substantially agree with
these. Thus it gives one the impression of a certain lack
of freedom, of occasional short-sightedness, in spite of every
kind of adroitness within the objectively circumscribed
area. What I am now describing is merely the impression
this sort of thinking makes upon the observer, who must
himself already have a different standpoint, or it would be
quite impossible for him to observe the phenomenon of
extraverted thinking. As a result of his different stand-
point he merely sees its aspect, not its nature; whereas
the man who himself possesses this type of thinking is
able to seize its nature, while its aspect escapes him.
Judgment made upon appearance only cannot be fair to
the essence of the thing — hence the result is depreciatory.
But essentially this thinking is no less fruitful and creative
than introverted thinking, only its powers are in the service
of other ends. This difference is perceived most clearly
when extraverted thinking is engaged upon material, which
is specifically an object of the subjectively orientated think-
ing. This happens, for instance, when a subjective con-
viction is interpreted analytically from objective facts
or is regarded as a product or derivative of objective ideas.
But, for our ‘ scientifically ’ orientated consciousness, the
difference between the two modes of thinking becomes
still more obvious when the subjectively orientated think-
ing makes an attempt to bring objective data into connec-
tions not objectively given, i.t. to subordinate them t6
a subjective idea. Either senses the other as an encroach-
ment, and hence a sort of shadow effect is produced,
wherein either type reveals to the other its least favourable
aspect The subjectively orientated thinking then appears
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 433
quite arbitrary, while the extraverted thinking seems to
have an incommensurability that is altogether dull and
banal. Thus the two standpoints are incessantly at war.
Such a conflict, we might think, could be easily adjusted
if only we clearly discriminated objects of a subjective from
those of an objective nature. Unfortunately, however,
such a discrimination is a matter of impossibility, although
not a few have attempted it. Even if such a separation
were possible, it would be a very disastrous proceeding,
since in themselves both orientations are one-sided, with a
definitely restricted validity ; hence they both require this
mutual correction. Thought is at once sterilized, whenever
thinking is brought, to any great extent, under the influence
of objective data, since it becomes degraded into a mere
appendage of objective facts ; in which case, it is no
longer able to free itself from objective data for the purpose
of establishing an abstract idea. The process of thought
is reduced to mere ‘ reflection ’, not in the sense of
* meditation ’, but in the sense of a mere imitation that
makes no essential affirmation beyond what was already
visibly and immediately present in the objective data.
Such a thinking-process leads naturally and directly back
to the objective fact, but never beyond it ; not once, there-
fore, can it lead to the coupling of experience with an
objective idea. And, vice versa, when this thinking has an
objective idea for its object, it is quite unable to grasp
the practical individual experience, but persists in a more
or less tautological position. The materialistic mentality
presents a magnificent example of this.
When, as the result of a reinforced objective deter-
mination, extraverted thinking is subordinated to objective
data, it entirely loses itself, on the one hand, in the
individual experience, and proceeds to amass an accumu-
lation of undigested empirical material. The oppressive
mass of more or less disconnected individual experiences
434
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
produces a state of intellectual dissociation, which, on the
other hand, usually demands a psychological compensation.
This must consist in an idea, just as simple as it is
universal, which shall give coherence to the heaped-up
but intrinsically disconnected whole, or at least it should
provide an inkling of such a connection. Such ideas as
“ matter ” or “energy” are suitable for this purpose. But,
whenever thinking primarily depends not so much upon
external facts as upon an accepted or second-hand idea,
the very poverty of the idea provokes a compensation in
the form of a still more impressive accumulation of facts,
which assume a one-sided grouping in keeping with the
relatively restricted and sterile point of view ; whereupon
many valuable and sensible aspects of things automatically
go by the board. The vertiginous abundance of the so-
called scientific literature of to-day owes a deplorably
high percentage of its existence to this misorientation.
2. The Extraverted Think in g Type
It is a fact of experience that all the basic psychological
functions seldom or never have the same strength or grade
of development in one and the same individual. As a
rule, one or other function predominates, in both strength
and development When supremacy among the psycho-
logical functions is given to thinking, i.e. when the life of
an individual is mainly ruled by reflective thinking so
that every important action proceeds from intellectually
considered motives, or when there is at least a tendency
to conform to such motives, we may fairly call this a
thinking type. Such a type can be either introverted or
extraverted. We will first discuss the extraverted thinking
type .
In accordance with his definition, we must picture a
man whose constant aim — in so far, of course, as he is a
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 435
pure type — is to bring his total life-activities into relation
with intellectual conclusions, which in the last resort are
always orientated by objective data, whether objective
facts or generally valid ideas. This type of man gives, the
deciding voice — not merely for himself alone but also on
behalf of his entourage — either to the actual objective
reality or to its objectively orientated, intellectual formula.
By this formula are good and evil measured, and beauty
and ugliness determined. All is right that corresponds
with this formula ; all is wrong that contradicts it ; and
everything that is neutral to it is purely accidental.
Because this formula seems to correspond with the mean-
ing of the world, it also becomes a world-law whose
realization must be achieved at all times and seasons, both
individually and collectively. Just as the extraverted
thinking type subordinates himself to his formula, so, for
its own good, must his entourage also obey it, since the
man who refuses to obey is wrong — he is resisting the
world-law, and is, therefore, unreasonable, immoral, and
without a conscience. His moral code forbids him to
tolerate exceptions ; his ideal must, under all circumstances,
be realized; for in his eyes it is the purest conceivable
formulation of objective reality, and, therefore, must also
be generally valid truth, quite indispensable for the
salvation of man. This is not from any great love for his
neighbour, but from a higher standpoint of justice and
truth. Everything in his own nature that appears to
invalidate this formula is mere imperfection, an accidental
miss-fire, something to be eliminated on the next occasion,
or, in the event of further failure, then clearly a sickness.
If tolerance for the sick, the suffering, or the deranged
should chance to be an ingredient in the formula, special
provisions will be devised for humane societies, hospitals,
prisons, colonies, etc., or at least extensive plans for such
projects. For the actual execution of these schemes the
436 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
motives of justice and truth do not, as a rule, suffice ; they
still devolve upon real Christian charity, which has more
to do with feeling than with any intellectual formula.
‘One really should ’or ‘one must’ figure largely in this
programme. If the formula is wide enough, this type
may play a very useful rdle in social life, either as a
reformer or a ventilator of public wrongs or a purifier of
the public conscience, or as the propagator of important
innovations. But the more rigid the formula, the more
does he develop into a grumbler, a crafty reasoner, and
a self-righteous critic, who would like to impress both
himself and others into one schema.
We have now outlined two extreme figures, between
which terminals the majority of these types may be
graduated.
In accordance with the nature of the extraverted
attitude, the influence and activities of such personalities
are all the more favourable and beneficent, the further
one goes from the centre. Their best aspect is to be
found at the periphery of their sphere of influence. The
further we penetrate into their own province, the more
do the unfavourable results of their tyranny impress us
Another life still pulses at the periphery, where the truth
of the formula can be sensed as an estimable adjunct to
the rest. But the further we probe into the special sphere
where the formula operates, the more do we find life
ebbing away from all that fails to coincide with its dictates.
Usually it is the nearest relatives who have to taste the
most disagreeable results of an extraverted formula, since
they are the first to be unmercifully blessed with it But
above all the subject himself is the one who suffers most
— which brings us to the other side of the psychology of
this type.
The fact that an intellectual formula never has been
and never will be discovered which could embrace the
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 437
abundant possibilities of life in a fitting expression must
lead — where such a formula is accepted — to an inhibition,
or total exclusion, of other highly important forms and
activities of life. In the first place, all those vital forms
dependent upon feeling will become repressed in such a
type, as, for instance, aesthetic activities, taste, artistic
sense, the art of friendship, etc. Irrational forms such
as religious experiences, passions and the like, are often
obliterated even to the point of complete unconsciousness.
These, conditionally quite important, forms of life have to
support an existence that is largely unconscious. Doubt-
less there are exceptional men who are able to sacrifice
their entire life to one definite formula ; but for most of
us a permanent life of such exclusiveness is impossible.
Sooner or later — in accordance with outer circumstances
and inner gifts — the forms of life repressed by the intel-
lectual attitude become indirectly perceptible, through a
gradual disturbance of the conscious conduct of life.
Whenever disturbances of this kind reach a definite
intensity, one speaks of a neurosis. In most cases, how-
eyer, it does not go so far, because the individual in-
stinctively allows himself some preventive extenuations
of his formula, worded, of course, in a suitable and
reasonable way. In this way a safety-valve is created.
The relative or total unconsciousness of such
tendencies or functions as are excluded from any partici-
pation in the conscious attitude keeps them in a relatively
undeveloped state. As compared with the conscious
function they are inferior. To the extent that they are
unconscious, they become merged with the remaining
contents of the unconscious, from which they acquire a
bizarre character. To the extent that they are conscious,
they only play a secondary r61e, although one of con-
siderable importance for the whole psychological picture.
Since feelings are the first to oppose and contradict
438 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
the rigid intellectual formula, they are affected first by
this conscious inhibition, and upon them the most intense
repression falls. No function can be entirely eliminated —
it can only be greatly distorted. In so far as feelings
allow themselves to be arbitrarily shaped and sub-
ordinated, they have to support the intellectual conscious
attitude and adapt themselves to its aims. Only to a
certain degree, however, is this possible; a part of the
feeling remains insubordinate, and therefore must be
repressed. Should the repression succeed, it disappears
from consciousness and proceeds to unfold a subconscious
activity, which runs counter to conscious aims, even
producing effects whose causation is a complete enigma
to the individual. For example, conscious altruism, often
of an extremely high order, may be crossed by a secret
self-seeking, of which the individual is wholly unaware,
and which impresses intrinsically unselfish actions with
the stamp of selfishness. Purely ethical aims may lead
the individual into critical situations, which sometimes
have more than a semblance of being decided by quite
other than ethical motives. There are guardians of public
morals or voluntary rescue-workers who suddenly find
themselves in deplorably compromising situations, or in
dire need of rescue. Their resolve to save often leads
them to employ means which only tend to precipitate
what they most desire to avoid. There are extraverted
idealists, whose desire to advance the salvation of man
is so consuming that they will not shrink from any lying
and dishonest means in the pursuit of their ideal. There
are a few painful examples in science where investigators
of the highest esteem, from a profound conviction of the
truth and general validity of their formula, have not
scrupled to falsify evidence in favour of their ideal. This
is sanctioned by the formula ; the end justifieth the means.
Only an inferior feeling-function, operating seductively
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 439
and unconsciously, could bring about such aberrations in
otherwise reputable men.
The inferiority of feeling in this type manifests itself
also in other ways. In so fai* as it corresponds with
the dominating positive formula, the conscious attitude
becomes more or less impersonal, often, indeed, to such
a degree that a very considerable wrong is done to
personal interests. When the conscious attitude is
extreme, all personal considerations recede from view,
even those which concern the individual’s own person.
His health is neglected, his social position deteriorates,
often the most vital interests of his family are violated —
they are wronged morally and financially, even their
bodily health is made to suffer — all in the service of the
ideal. At all events personal sympathy with others must
be impaired, unless they too chance to be in the service
of the same formula. Hence it not infrequently happens
that his immediate family circle, his own children for .
instance, only know such a father as a cruel tyrant, whilst
the outer world resounds with the fame of his humanity.
Not so much in spite of as because of the highly
impersonal character of the conscious attitude, the un-
conscious feelings are highly personal and oversensitive,
giving rise to certain secret prejudices, as, for instance,
a decided readiness to misconstrue any objective opposi-
tion to his formula as personal ill-will, or a constant
tendency to make negative suppositions regarding the
qualities of others in order to invalidate their arguments
beforehand — in defence, naturally, of his own susceptibility.
As a result of this unconscious sensitiveness, his expression
and tone frequently becomes sharp, pointed, aggressive,
and insinuations multiply. The feelings have an untimely
and halting character, which is always a mark of the
inferior function. Hence arises a pronounced tendency to
resentment However generous the individual sacrifice
440
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
to the intellectual goal may be, the feelings are correspond-
ingly petty, suspicious, crossgrained, and conservative.
Everything new that is not already contained in the
formula is viewed through a veil of unconscious hatred,
and is judged accordingly. It happened only in the
middle of last century that a certain physician, famed for
his humanitarianism, threatened to dismiss an assistant
for daring to use a thermometer, because the formula
decreed that fever shall be recognized by the pulse.
There are, of course, a host of similar examples.
Thinking which in other respects may be altogether
blameless becomes all the more subtly and prejudicially
affected, the more feelings are repressed. An intellectual
standpoint, which, perhaps on account of its actual intrinsic
value, might justifiably claim general recognition, under-
goes a characteristic alteration through the influence of
this unconscious personal sensitiveness ; it becomes rigidly
dogmatic. The personal self-assertion is transferred to
the intellectual standpoint. Truth is no longer left to
work her natural effect, but through an identification with
the subject she is treated like a sensitive darling whom an
evil-minded critic has wronged. The critic is demolished,
if possible with personal invective, and no argument is too
gross to be used against him. Truth must be trotted out,
until finally it begins to dawn upon the public that it is
not so much really a question of truth as of her personal
procreator.
The dogmatism of the intellectual standpoint, however,
occasionally undergoes still further peculiar modifications
from the unconscious admixture of unconscious personal
feelings ; these changes are less a question of feeling, in
the stricter sense, than of contamination from other un-
conscious factors which become blended with the repressed
feeling in the unconscious. Although reason itself offers
proof, that every intellectual formula can be no more than
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
441
a partial truth, and can never lay claim, therefore, to
autocratic authority; in practice, the formula obtains so
great an ascendancy that, beside it, every other standpoint
and possibility recedes into the background. It replaces
all the more general, less defined, hence the more modest
and truthful, views of life. It even takes the place of that
general view of life which we call religion. Thus the
formula becomes a religion, although in essentials it has
not the smallest connection with anything religious.
Therewith it also gains the essentially religious character
of absoluteness. It becomes, as it were, an intellectual
superstition. But now all those psychological tendencies
that suffer under its repression become grouped together
in the unconscious, and form a counter-position, giving
rise to paroxysms of doubt. As a defence against doubt,
the conscious attitude grows fanatical. For fanaticism,
after all, is merely overcompensated doubt Ultimately
this development leads to an exaggerated defence of the
conscious position, and to the gradual formation of an
absolutely antithetic unconscious position; for example,
an extreme irrationality develops, in opposition to the
conscious rationalism, or it becomes highly archaic and
superstitious, in opposition to a conscious standpoint
imbued with modern science. This fatal opposition is the
source of those narrow-minded and ridiculous views,
familiar to the historians of science, into which many
praiseworthy pioneers have ultimately blundered. It riot
infrequently happens in a man of this type that the side
of the unconscious becomes embodied in a woman.
In my experience, this type, which is doubtless familiar
to my readers, is chiefly found among men, since thinking
tends to be a much more dominant function in men than
in women. As a rule, when thinking achieves the mastery
in women, it is, in my experience, a kind of thinking
which results from a prevailingly intuitive activity of mind.
44 * GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
The thought of the extraverted thinking type is
positive , i.e. it produces. It either leads to new facts or to
general conceptions of disparate experimental material.
Its judgment is generally synthetic . Even when it analyses,
it constructs, because it is always advancing beyond the
analysis to a new combination, a further conception which
re-unites the analysed material in a new way or adds some-
thing further to the given material. In general, therefore,
we may describe this kind of judgment as predicative . It is,
in any case, characteristic that it is never absolutely depre-
ciatory or destructive, but always substitutes a fresh value
for one that is demolished. This quality is due to the
fact that thought is the main channel into which a
thinking-type’s energy flows. Life steadily advancing
shows itself in the man’s thinking, so that his ideas main-
tain a progressive, creative character. His thinking neither
stagnates, nor is it in the least regressive. Such qualities
cling only to a thinking that is not given priority in
consciousness. In this event it is relatively unimportant,
and also lacks the character of a positive vital activity. It
follows in the wake of other functions, it becomes
Epimethean, it has an ‘ esprit de l’escalier ’ quality, content-
ing itself with constant ponderings and broodings upon
things past and gone, in an effort to analyse and digest
them. Where the creative element, as in this case, inhabits
another function, thinking no longer progresses : it stagnates.
Its judgment takes on a decided inherency-character^ ie.
it entirely confines itself to the range of the given material,
nowhere overstepping it It is contented with a more or
less abstract statement, and fails to impart any value to the
experimental material that was not already there.
The inherency-judgment of such extraverted thinking is
objectively orientated, i.e. its conclusion always expresses
the objective importance of experience. Hence, not only
does it remain under the orientating influence of objective
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 443
data, but it actually rests within the charmed circle of the
individual experience, about which it affirms nothing that
was. not already given by it. We may easily observe this
thinking in those people who cannot refrain from tacking
on to . an impression or experience some rational and
doubtless very valid remark, which, however, in no way
adventures beyond the given orbit of the experience. At
bottom, such a remark merely says ( I have understood it
— I can reconstruct it.* But there the matter also ends.
At its very highest, such a judgment signifies merely the
placing of an experience in an objective setting, whereby
the experience is at once recognized as belonging to the
frame.
Bift whenever a function other than thinking possesses
priority in consciousness to any marked degree, in so far
as thinking is conscious at all and not directly dependent
upon the dominant function,, it assumes a negative
character. In so far as it is subordinated to the dominant
function, it may actually wear a positive aspect, but a
narrower scrutiny will easily prove that it simply mimics
the dominant function, supporting it with arguments that
unmistakably contradict the laws of logic proper to
thinking. Such a thinking, therefore, ceases to have any
interest for our present discussion. Our concern is rather
with jthe constitution of that thinking which cannot be
subordinated to the dominance of another function, but
remains true to its own principle. To observe and
investigate this thinking in itself is not easy, since, in the
concrete case, it is more or less constantly repressed by
the conscious attitude. Hence, in the majority of cases,
it first must be retrieved from the background of con-
sciousness, unless in some unguarded moment it should
chance to come accidentally to the surface. As a rule, it
must be enticed with some such questions as c Now what
do you really think ? * or, again, * What is your private view
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
about the matter ?’ Or perhaps one may even have to
use a little cunning, framing the question something like
this: ‘What do you imagine, then, that / really think
about the matter?’ This latter form should be chosen
when the real thinking is unconscious and, therefore,
projected. The thinking that is enticed to the surface in
this way has characteristic qualities ; it was these I had
in mind just now when I described it as negative. Its
habitual mode is best characterized by the two words
‘nothing, but’. Goethe personified this thinking in the
figure of Mephistopheles. It shows a most distinct
tendency to trace back the object of its judgment to some
banality or other, thus stripping it of its own independent
significance. This happens simply because it is repre-
sented as being dependent upon some other commonplace
thing. Wherever a conflict, apparently essential in nature,
arises between two men, negative thinking mutters
‘Cherchez la femme*. When a man champions or ad-
vocates a cause, negative thinking makes no inquiry as to
the importance of the thing, but merely asks ‘ How much
does he make by it ? * The dictum ascribed to Moleschott :
“ Der Mensch ist, was er isst ” (“ Man is what he eats ”)
also belongs to this collection, as do many more aphorisms
and opinions which I need not enumerate.
The destructive quality of this thinking as well as its
occasional and limited usefulness, hardly need further
elucidation. But there still exists another form of
negative thinking, which at first glance perhaps would
scarcely be recognized as such : I refer to the theosophiccd
thinking which is to-day rapidly spreading in every
quarter of the globe, presumably as a reaction phenomenon
to the materialism of the epoch now receding. Theo-
sophical thinking has an air that is not in the least
reductive, since it exalts everything to transcendental and
world-embracing ideas. A dream, for instance, is no
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYRES 445
longer a modest dream, but an experience upon * another
plane’. The hitherto inexplicable fact of telepathy is
very simply explained by * vibrations ’ which pass from one
man to another. An ordinary .nervous trouble is quite
simply accounted for by the fact that something has
collided with the astral body. Certain anthropological
peculiarities of the dwellers on the Atlantic seaboard are
easily explained by the submerging of Atlantis, and so on.
We have merely to open a theosophical book to be over-
whelmed by the realization that everything is already
explained, and that * spiritual science ’ has left no enigmas
of life unsolved. But, fundamentally, this sort of thinking
is just as negative as materialistic thinking. When the
latter conceives psychology as chemical changes taking
place in the cell-ganglia, or as the extrusion and with-
drawal of cell-processes, or as an internal secretion, in
essence this is just as superstitious as theosophy. The
only difference lies in the fact that materialism reduces
all phenomena to our current physiological notions, while
theosophy brings everything into the concepts of Indian
metaphysics. When we trace the dream to an overloaded
stomach, the dream is not thereby explained, and when
we explain telepathy as ‘vibrations’, we have said just as
little. Since, what are ‘vibrations’? Not only are both
methods of explanation quite impotent — they are actually
destructive, because by interposing their seeming explana-
tions they withdraw interest from the problem, diverting
it in the former case to the stomach, and in the latter to
imaginary vibrations, thus preventing any serious in-
vestigation of the problem. Either kind of thinking j s
both sterile and sterilizing. Their negative qualify con-
sists in this : it is a method of thought that is indescrib-
ably cheap ; there is a real poverty of productive and
creative energy. It is a thinking taken in tow by other
functions.
446
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
3. Feeling
Feeling in the extraverted attitude is orientated by
objective data, i.e. the object is the indispensable deter-
minant of the kind of feeling. It agrees with objective
values. If one has always known feeling as a subjective
fact, the nature of extraverted feeling will not immediately
be understood, since it has freed itself as fully as possible
from the subjective factor, and has, instead, become wholly
subordinated to the influence of the object. Even where
it seems to show a certain independence of the quality of
the concrete object, it is none the less under the spell of
traditional or generally valid standards of some sort I
may feel constrained, for instance, to use the predicate
* beautiful ’ or ‘good’, not because I find the object
‘ beautiful ’ or ‘good* from my own subjective feeling,
but because it is fitting and politic so to do ; and fitting it
certainly is, inasmuch as a contrary opinion would disturb
the general feeling situation. A feeling-judgment such
as this is in no way a simulation or a lie — it is merely
an act of accommodation. A picture, for instance, may
be termed beautiful, because a picture that is hung in a
drawing-room and bearing a well-known signature is
generally assumed to be beautiful, or because the predicate
‘ugly’ might offend the family of the fortunate possessor,
or because there is a benevolent intention on the part
of the visitor to create a pleasant feeling-atmosphere, to
which end everything must be felt as agreeable. Such
feelings are governed by the standard of the objective
determinants. As such they are genuine, and represent
the total visible feeling-function.
■ In precisely the same way as extraverted thinking
strives to rid itself of subjective influences, extraverted
feeling has also to undergo a certain process of differentia-
tion, before it is finally denuded of every subjective
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
447
trimming. The valuations resulting from the act of feeling
either correspond directly with objective values or at least
chime in with certain traditional and generally known
standards of value. This kind of feeling is very largely
responsible for the fact that so many people flock to the
theatre, to concerts, or to Church, and what is more, with
correctly adjusted positive feelings. Fashions, too, owe
their existence to it, and, what is far more valuable, the
whole positive and wide-spread support of social, philan-
thropic, and such like cultural enterprises. In such
matters, extraverted feeling proves itself a creative factor.
Without this feeling, for instance, a beautiful and har-
monious sociability would be unthinkable. So far extra-
verted feeling is just as beneficent and rationally effective
as extraverted thinking. But this salutary effect is lost
as soon as the object gains an exaggerated influence.
For, when this happens, extraverted feeling draws the
personality too much into the object, i.e. the object
assimilates the person, whereupon the personal character
of the feeling, which constitutes its principal charm, is
lost Feeling then becomes cold, material, untrustworthy.
It betrays a secret aim, or at least arouses the suspicion
of it in an impartial observer. No longer does it make
that welcome and refreshing impression the invariable
accompaniment of genuine feeling; instead, one scents
a pose or affectation, although .the egocentric motive may
be entirely unconscious.
Such overstressed, extraverted feeling certainly fulfils
aesthetic expectations, but no longer does it speak to the
heart ; it merely appeals to the senses, or — worse still —
to the reason. Doubtless it cam provide aesthetic padding
for a situation, but there it stops, and beyond that its
effect is nil. It has become sterile. Should this process
go further, a strangely contradictory dissociation of feeling
develops ; every object is seized upon with feeling-
448 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
valuations, and numerous relationships are made which
are inherently and mutually incompatible. Since such
aberrations would be quite impossible if a sufficiently
emphasized subject were present, the last vestige of a
real personal standpoint also becomes suppressed. The
subject becomes so swallowed up in individual feeling
processes that to the observer it seems as though there
were no longer a subject of feeling but merely a feeling
process. In such a condition feeling has entirely forfeited
its original human warmth, it gives an impression of pose,
inconstancy, unreliability, and in the worst cases appears
definitely hysterical.
4. The Extroverted Feeling-Type
In so far as feeling is, incontestably, a more obvious
peculiarity of feminine psychology than thinking, the
most pronounced feeling-types are also to be found among
women. When extraverted feeling possesses the priority
we speak of an extraverted feeling-type. Examples of
this type that I can call to mind are, almost without
exception, women. She is a woman who follows the
guiding-line of her feeling. As the result of education
her feeling has become developed into an adjusted
function, subject to conscious control. Except in extreme
cases, feeling has a personal character, in spite of the
fact that the subjective factor may be already, to a large
extent, repressed. The personality appears to be adjusted
in relation to objective conditions. Her feelings corre-
spond with objective situations and general values.
Nowhere is this more clearly revealed than in the so-
called ‘ love-choice ’ ; the ‘ suitable ’ man is loved, not
another one ; he is suitable not so much because he fully
accords with the fundamental character of the woman
as a rule she is quite uninformed about this — but because
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 449
he meticulously corresponds in standing, age, capacity,
height, and family respectability with every reasonable
requirement. Such a formulation might, of course, be
easily rejected as ironical or depreciatory, were I not fully
convinced that the love-feeling of this type of woman
completely corresponds with her choice. It is genuine,
and not merely intelligently manufactured. Such ‘ reason-
able* marriages exist without number, and they are by
no means the worst Such women are good comrades
to their husbands and excellent mothers, so long as
husbands or children possess the conventional psychic
constitution. One can feel ‘correctly *, however, only when
feeling is disturbed by nothing else. But nothing disturbs
feeling so much as thinking. It is at once intelligible,
therefore, that this type should repress thinking as much
as possible. This does not mean to say that such a
woman does not think at all ; on the contrary, she may
even think a great deal and very ably, but her thinking
is never sui generis; it is, in fact, an Epimethean
appendage to her feeling. What she cannot feel, she
cannot consciously think. ‘But I can’t think what I
don't feel such a type said to me once in indignant
tones. . As far as feeling permits, she can think very well,
but every conclusion, however logical, that might lead to
a disturbance of feeling is rejected from the outset It
is simply not thought. And thus everything that corre-
sponds with objective valuations is good: these things
are loved or treasured; the rest seems merely to exist
in a world apart.
But a change comes over the picture when the
importance of the object reaches a still higher level. As
already explained above, such an assimilation of subject
to object then occurs as almost completely to engulf the
subject of feeling. Feeling loses its personal character —
it becomes feeling per se ; it almost seems as though the
450
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
personality were wholly dissolved in the feeling of the
moment. Now, since in actual life situations constantly
and successively alternate, in which the feeling-tones
released are not only different but are actually mutually
contrasting, the personality inevitably becomes dissipated
in just so many different feelings. Apparently, he is
this one moment, and something completely different
the next — apparently, I repeat, for in reality such a
manifold personality is altogether impossible. The basis
of the ego always remains identical with itself, and,
therefore, appears definitely opposed to the changing
states of feeling. Accordingly the observer senses the
display of feeling not so much as a personal expression
ot the feeling-subject as an alteration of his ego, a mood,
in other words. Corresponding with the degree of dis-
sociation between the ego and the momentary state of
feeling, signs of disunion with the self will become more
or less evident, i.e. the original compensatory attitude
of the unconscious becomes a manifest opposition. This
reveals itself, in the first instance, in extravagant demon-
strations of feeling, in loud and obtrusive feeling predicates,
which leave one, however, somewhat incredulous. They
ring hollow ; they are not convincing. On the contrary,
they at once give one an inkling of a resistance that is
being overcompensated, and one begins to wonder whether
such a feeling-judgment .might not just as well be entirely
different. In fact, in a very short time it actually is
different. Only a very slight alteration in the situation is
needed to provoke forthwith an entirely contrary estima-
tion of the selfsame object. The result of such an
experience is that the observer is unable to take either
judgment at all seriously. He begins to reserve his own
opinion. But since, with this type, it is a matter of the
greatest moment to establish an intensive feeling rapport
with his environment, redoubled efforts are now required
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 451
to overcome this reserve. Thus, in the manner of the
drculus vitiosus, the situation goes from bad to worse.
The more the feeling relation with the object becomes
overstressed, the nearer the unconscious opposition
approaches the surface.
We have already seen that the extra verted feeling
type, as a rule, represses his thinking, just because thinking
is the function most liable to disturb feeling. Similarly,
when thinking seeks to arrive at pure results of any kind,
its first act is to exclude feeling, since nothing is calculated
to harass and falsify thinking so much as feeling-values.
Thinking, therefore, in so far as it is an independent
function, is repressed in the extraverted feeling type. Its
repression, as I observed before, is complete only in so far
as its inexorable logic forces it to conclusions that are
incompatible with feeling. It is suffered to exist as the
servant of feeling, or more accurately its slave. Its back-
bone is broken ; it may not operate on its own account,
in accordance with its own laws. Now, since a logic
exists producing inexorably right conclusions, this must
happen somewhere, although beyond the bounds of con-
sciousness, i.c. in the unconscious. Pre-eminently, there-
fore, the unconscious content of this type is a particular
kind of thinking. It is an infantile, archaic, and negative
thinking.
So long as conscious feeling preserves the personal
character, or, in other words, so long as the personality
does not become swallowed up by successive states of
feeling, this unconscious thinking remains compensatory.
But as soon as the personality is dissociated, becoming
dispersed in mutually contradictory states of feeling, the
identity of the ego is lost, and the subject becomes un-
conscious. But, because of the subject’s lapse into the
unconscious, it becomes associated with the unconscious
thinking - function, therewith assisting the unconscious
45 *
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
thought to occasional consciousness. The stronger the
conscious feeling relation, and therefore, the more ‘de-
personalized/ it becomes, the stronger grows the uncon-
scious opposition. This reveals itself in the fact that
unconscious ideas centre round just the most valued objects,
which are thus pitilessly stripped of their value. That
thinking which always thinks in the ‘nothing but’ style
is in its right place here, since it destroys the ascendancy
of the feeling that is chained to the object.
Unconscious thought reaches the surface in the form of
irruptions, often of an obsessing nature, the general
character of which is always negative and depreciatory.
Women of this type have moments when the most hideous
thoughts fasten upon the very objects most valued by their
feelings. This negative thinking avails itself of every
infantile prejudice or parallel that is calculated to breed
doubt in the feeling-value, and it tows every primitive
instinct along with it, in the effort to make ‘a nothing
but* interpretation of the feeling. At this point, it is
perhaps in the nature of a side-remark to observe that the
collective unconscious, t\e. the totality of the primordial
images, also becomes enlisted in the same manner, and
from the elaboration and development' of these images
there dawns the possibility of a regeneration of the attitude
upon another basis.
Hysteria, with the characteristic infantile sexuality of
its unconscious world of ideas, is the principal form of
neurosis with this type.
B. Recapitulation of Extrarerted Rational Types
I term the two preceding types rational or judging
types because they are characterized by the supremacy of
the reasoning and the judging functions. It is a general
distinguishing mark of both types that their life is, to a
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 453
large extent, subordinated to reasoning judgment But
we must not overlook the point, whether by ‘reasoning*
we are referring to the standpoint of the individual’s
subjective psychology, or to the standpoint of the observer,
who perceives and judges from without. For such an
observer could easily arrive at an opposite judgment,
especially if he has a merely intuitive apprehension of
the behaviour of the observed, and judges accordingly. In
its totality, the life of this type is never dependent upon
reasoning judgment alone ; it is influenced in almost equal
degree by unconscious irrationality. If observation is
restricted to behaviour, without any concern for the
domestic interior of the individual’s consciousness, one
may get an even stronger impression of the irrational
and accidental character of certain unconscious manifesta-
tions in the individual’s behaviour than of the reasonableness
of his conscious purposes and motivations. I, therefore,
base my judgment upon what the individual feels to be
his conscious psychology. But I am prepared to grant
that we may equally well entertain a precisely opposite
conception of such a psychology, and present it accordingly.
I am also convinced that, had I myself chanced to possess
a different individual psychology, I should have described
the rational types in the reversed way, from the standpoint
of the unconscious — as irrational, therefore. This circum-
stance aggravates the difficulty of a lucid presentation of
psychological matters to a degree not to be underestimated,
and immeasurably increases the possibility of misunder-
standings. The discussions which develop from these
misunderstandings are, as a rule, quite hopeless, since the
real issue is never joined, each side speaking, as it were, in
a different tongue. Such experience is merely one reason
the more for basing my presentation upon the subjective
conscious psychology of the individual, since there, at
least, one has a definite objective footing, which completely
454
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
drops away the moment we try to ground psychological
principles upon the unconscious. For the observed, in this
case, could undertake no kind of co-operation, because there
is nothing of which he is not more informed than his own
unconscious. The judgment would entirely devolve upon
the observer — a certain guarantee that its basis would be
his own individual psychology, which would infallibly be
imposed upon the observed. To my mind, this is the case
in the psychologies both of Freud and of Adler. The
individual is completely at the mercy of the arbitrary
discretion of his observing critic — which can never be the
case when the conscious psychology of the observed is
accepted as the basis. After all, he is the only competent
judge, since he alone knows his own motives.
The reasonableness that characterizes the conscious
management of life in both these types, involves a conscious
exclusion of the accidental and non-rational. Reasoning
judgment, in such a psychology, represents a power that
coerces the untidy and accidental things of life into definite
forms ; such at least is its aim. Thus, on the one hand, a
definite choice is made among the possibilities of life, since
only the rational choice is consciously accepted ; but, on
the other hand, the independence and influence of those
psychic functions which perceive life’s happenings are
essentially restricted. This limitation of sensation and
intuition is, of course, not absolute. These functions exist,
for they are universal ; but their products are sutyect to
the choice of the reasoning judgment. It is not the
absolute strength of sensation, for instance, which turns
the scales in the motivation of action, but judgment Thus,
in a certain sense, the perceiving-functions share the same
fate as feeling in the case of the first type, or thinking in
that of the second. They are relatively repressed, and
therefore in an inferior state of differentiation. This
circumstance gives a particular stamp to the unconscious
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 455
of both our types ; what such men do consciously and
intentionally accords with reason {their reason of course),
but what happens to them corresponds either with infantile,
primitive sensations, or with similarly archaic intuitions.
I will try to make clear what I mean by these latter
concepts in the sections that follow. At all events, that
which happens to this type is irrational (from their own
standpoint of course). Now, since there are vast numbers
of men whose lives consist in what happens to them more
than in actions resulting from reasoned intention, it might
conceivably happen, that such a man, after careful analysis,
would describe both our types as irrational. We must
grant him, however, that only too often a man’s uncon-
scious makes a far stronger impression upon one than his
conscious, and that his actions often have considerably
more weight and meaning than his reasoned motivations.
The rationality of both types is orientated objectively,
and depends upon objective data. Their reasonableness
corresponds with what passes as reasonable from the
collective standpoint Subjectively they consider nothing
rational save what is generally considered as such. But
reason is also very largely subjective and individual. In
our case this share is repressed — increasingly so, in
fact, the more the significance of the object is exalted.
Both the subject and subjective reason, therefore, are
always threatened with repression ; and, when it descends,
they fall under the tyranny of the unconscious, which in
this case possesses most unpleasant qualities. We have
already spoken of its thinking. But, in addition, there are
primitive sensations, which reveal themselves in compulsive
forms, as, for instance, ah abnormal compulsive pleasure-
seeking in every conceivable direction; there are also
primitive intuitions, which can become a positive torture
to the individuals concerned, not to mention their entourage.
Everything disagreeable and painful, everything disgusting,
456
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
ugly, and evil is scented out or suspected, and these as a
rule only correspond with half-truths, than which nothing
is more calculated to create misunderstandings of the most
poisonous kind. The powerful influence of the opposing
unconscious contents necessarily brings about a frequent
interruption of the rational conscious government, namely,
a striking subservience to the element of chance, so that,
either by virtue of their sensational value or unconscious
significance, accidental happenings acquire a compelling
influence.
6. Sensation
Sensation, in the extraverted attitude, is most definitely
conditioned by the object As sense-perception, sensation
is naturally dependent upon the object But, just as
naturally, it is also dependent upon the subject; hence,
there is also a subjective sensation, which after its kind is
entirely different from the objective. In the extraverted
attitude this subjective share of sensation, in so far as its
conscious application is concerned, is either inhibited or
repressed. As an irrational function, sensation is equally
repressed, whenever a rational function, e.g. thinking or
feeling, possesses the priority, i.e. it can be said to have
a conscious function, only in so far as the rational
attitude of consciousness permits accidental perceptions
to become conscious contents; in short, realizes them.
The function of sense is, of course, absolute in the stricter
sense; for example, everything is seen or heard to the
farthest physiological possibility, but not everything
attains that threshold value which a perception must
possess in order to be also apperceived. It is a different
matter when sensation itself possesses priority, instead
of merely seconding another function. In this case, no
element of objective sensation is excluded and nothing
repressed (with the exception of the subjective share
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 457
already mentioned). Sensation has a preferential objec-
tive determination, and those objects which release the
strongest sensation are decisive for the individual’s
psychology. The result of this is a pronounced sensuous
hold to the object Sensation, therefore, is a vital function,
equipped with the potentest vital instinct In so far as
objects release sensations, they matter ; and, in so far as
it lies within the power of sensation, they are also fully
accepted into consciousness, whether compatible with
reasoned judgment or not As a function its sole criterion
of value is the strength of the sensation as conditioned by
its objective qualities. Accordingly, all objective pro-
cesses, in so far as they release sensations at all, make
their appearance in consciousness. It is, however, only
concrete, sensuously perceived objects or processes which
excite sensations in the extraverted attitude ; exclusively
those, in fact, which everyone in all times and places
would sense as concrete. Hence, the orientation of such
an individual corresponds with purely concrete reality.
The judging, rational functions are subordinated to the
concrete facts of sensation, and, accordingly, possess the
qualities of inferior differentiation, £& they are marked by
a certain negativity, with infantile and archaic tendencies.
The function most affected by the repression, is, naturally,
the one standing opposite to sensation, viz. intuition, the
function of unconscious perception.
7. The Extraverted Sensation Type
No other human type can equal the extraverted
sensation-type in realism. His sense for objective facts
is extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation
of actual experience with concrete objects, and the more
pronounced he is, the less use does he make of his expert
ence. In certain cases the events of his life hardly deserve
45 ®
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
the name 1 experience \ He knows no better use for this
sensed ‘ experience ’ than to make it serve as a guide to
fresh sensations ; anything in the least 1 new ’ that comes
within his circle of interest is forthwith turned to a
sensational account and is made to serve this end. In so
far as one is disposed to regard a highly developed sense
for sheer actuality as very reasonable, will such men be
esteemed rational. In reality, however, this is by no
means the case, since they are equally subject to the
sensation of irrational, chance happenings, as they are
to rational behaviour.
Such a type — the majority are men apparently — does
not, of course, believe himself to be ‘ subject * to sensation.
He would be much more inclined to ridicule this view
as altogether inconclusive, since, from his standpoint,
sensation is the concrete manifestation of life — it is
simply the fulness of actual living. His aim is concrete
enjoyment, and his morality is similarly orientated. For
true enjoyment has its own special morality, its own
moderation and lawfulness, its own unselfishness and
devotedness. It by no means follows that he is just
sensual or gross, for he may differentiate his sensation
to the finest pitch of aesthetic purity without being the
least unfaithful, even in his most abstract sensations, to
his principle of objective sensation. Wulfen’s Cicerone des
riicksichUosen Lebensgenusses is the unvarnished confession
of a type of this sort From this point of view the
book seems to me worth reading.
Upon the lower levels this is the man of tangible
reality, with little tendency either for reflection or com-
manding purpose. To sense the object, to have and if
possible to enjoy sensations, is his constant motive. He
is by no means unlovable ; on the contrary, he frequently
has a charming and lively capacity for enjoyment; he is
sometimes a jolly fellow, and often a refined aesthete.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 459
In the former case, the great problems of life hinge upon
a good or indifferent dinner; in the latter, they are
questions of good taste. When he ‘ senses \ everything
essential has been said and done. Nothing can be more
than concrete and actual ; conjectures that transcend or
go beyond the concrete are only permitted on condition
that they enhance sensation. This need not be in any
way a pleasurable reinforcement, since this type is not a
common voluptuary; he merely desires the strongest
sensation, and this, by his very nature, he can receive
only from without What comes from within seems to
him morbid and objectionable. In so far as he thinks
and feels, he always reduces down to objective foundations,
i.e. to influences coming from the object, quite unperturbed
by the most violent departures from logic. Tangible
reality, under any conditions, makes him breathe again.
In this respect he is unexpectedly credulous. He will,
without hesitation, relate an obvious psychogenic symptom
to the falling barometer, while the existence of a psychic
conflict seems to him a fantastic abnormality. His love
is incontestably rooted in the manifest attractions of the
object. In so far as he is normal, he is conspicuously
adjusted to positive reality— -conspicuously, because his
adjustment is always visible. His ideal is the actual ; in
this respect he is considerate. He has no ideals related
to ideas — he has, therefore, no sort of ground for maintain-
ing a hostile attitude towards the reality of things and
facts. This .expresses itself in all the externals of his
life. He dresses well, according to his circumstances ; he
keeps a good table for his friends, who are either made
comfortable or at .least given to understand that his
fastidious taste is obliged to impose certain claims upon
his entourage. He even convinces one that certain
sacrifices are decidedly worth while for the sake of style.
But the more sensation predominates, so that the
460
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
sensing subject disappears behind the sensation, the
more unsatisfactory does this type become. Either he
develops into a crude pleasure-seeker or he becomes an
unscrupulous, designing sybarite. Although the object
is entirely indispensable to him, yet, as something existing
in and through itself, it is none the less depreciated It
is ruthlessly violated and essentially ignored, since now
its sole use is to stimulate sensation. The hold upon the
object is pushed to the utmost limit The unconscious is,
accordingly, forced out of its metier as a compensatory
function and driven into open opposition. But, above all,
the repressed intuitions begin to assert themselves in the
form of projections upon the object. The strangest con-
jectures arise; in the case of a sexual object, jealous
phantasies and anxiely-states play a great r 61 e. More
acute cases develop every sort of phobia, and especially
compulsive symptoms. The pathological contents have a
remarkable air of unreality, with a frequent moral or
religious colouring. A pettifogging captiousness often
develops, or an absurdly scrupulous morality coupled with
a primitive, superstitious and ‘ magical * religiosity, harking
back to abstruse rites. All these things have their source
in the repressed inferior functions, which, in such cases,
stand in harsh opposition to the conscious standpoint;
they wear, in fact, an aspect that is all the more striking
because they appear to rest upon the most absurd sup-
positions, in complete contrast to the conscious sense of
reality. The whole culture of thought and feeling seems,
in this second personality, to be twisted into a morbid
primitiveness; reason is hair-splitting sophistry — morality
is dreary moralizing and palpable Pharisaism — religion is
absurd superstition — intuition, the noblest of human gifts,
is a mere personal subtlety, a sniffing into every comer:
instead of searching the horizon, it recedes to the narrowest
gauge of human meanness.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
461
The specially compulsive character of the neurotic
symptoms represent the unconscious counterweight to
the laisser aller morality of a purely sensational attitude,
which, from the standpoint of rational judgment, accepts
without discrimination, everything that happens. Although
this lack of basic principles in the sensation-type does
not argue an absolute lawlessness and lack of restraint,
it at least deprives him of the quite essential restraining
power of judgment. Rational judgment represents a
conscious coercion, which the rational type appears to
impose upon himself of his own free will. This compul-
sion overtakes the sensation-type from the unconscious.
Moreover, the rational type’s link to the object, from the
very existence of a judgment, never means such an un-
conditioned relation as that which the sensation-type has
with the object When his attitude reaches an abnormal
one-sidedness, he is in danger of falling just as deeply
into the arms of the unconscious as he consciously clings
to the object. When he becomes neurotic, he is much
harder to treat in the rational way, because the functions
to which the physician must appeal are in a relatively
undifferentiated state; hence little or no trust can be
placed in them. Special means of bringing emotional
pressure to bear are often needed to make him at all
conscious.
8. Intuition
Intuition as the function of unconscious perception is
wholly directed upon outer objects in the extraverted
attitude. Because, in the main, intuition is an unconscious
process, the conscious apprehension of its nature is a very
difficult matter. In consciousness, the intuitive function
is represented by a certain attitude of expectation, a
perceptive and penetrating vision, wherein only the sub-
sequent result can prove, in every case, how much was
46 a GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
‘ perceived-into ’, and how much actually lay in the
object.
Just as sensation, when given the priority, is not a
mere reactive process of no further importance for the
object, but is almost an action which seizes and shapes the
object, so it is with intuition, which is by no means a
mere perception, or awareness, but an active, creative
process that builds into the object just as much as it takes
out. But, because this process extracts the perception
unconsciously, it also produces an unconscious effect in
the object The primary function of intuition is to transmit
mere images, or perceptions of relations and conditions,
which could be gained by the other functions, either not
at all, or only by very roundabout ways. Such images
have the value of definite discernments, and have a decisive
bearing upon action, whenever intuition is given the chief
weight ; in which case, psychic adaptation is based
almost exclusively upon intuition. Thinking, feeling,
and sensation are relatively repressed ; of these, sensation
is the one principally affected, because, as the conscious
function of sense, it offers the greatest obstacle to intuition.
Sensation disturbs intuition’s clear, unbiassed, naive aware-
ness with its importunate sensuous stimuli; for these
direct the glance upon the physical superficies, hence upon
the very things round and beyond which intuition tries
to peer. But since intuition, in the extraverted attitude,
has a prevailingly objective orientation, it actually comes
very near to sensation; indeed, the expectant attitude
towards outer objects may, with almost equal probability,
avail itself of sensation. Hence, for intuition really to
become paramount, sensation must to a large extent be
suppressed. I am now speaking of sensation as the simple
and direct sense-reaction, an almost definite physiological
and psychic datum. This must be expressly established
beforehand, because, if I ask the intuitive how he is
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 463
orientated, he will speak of things which are quite in-
distinguishable from sense-perceptions. Frequently he
will even make use of the term ‘ sensation ’. He actually
has sensations, but he is not guided by them per se, merely
using them as directing-points for his distant vision.
They are selected by unconscious expectation. Not the
strongest sensation, in the physiological sense, obtains the
crucial value, but any sensation whatsoever whose value
happens to become considerably enhanced by reason of
the intuitive’s unconscious attitude. In this way it may
eventually attain the leading position, appearing to the
intuitive’s consciousness indistinguishable from a pure
sensation. But actually it is not so.
Just as extraverted sensation strives to reach the
highest pitch of actuality, because only thus can the
appearance of a complete life be created, so intuition
tries to encompass the greatest possibilities, since only
through the awareness of possibilities is intuition fully
satisfied. Intuition seeks to discover possibilities in the
objective situation; hence as a mere tributary function
(viz. when not in the position of priority) it is also the
instrument which, in the presence of a hopelessly blocked
situation, works automatically towards the issue, which no
other function could discover. Where intuition has the
priority, every ordinary situation in 'life seems like a
closed room, which intuition has to open. It is constantly
seeking outlets and fresh possibilities in external life.
In a very short time every actual situation becomes a
prison to the intuitive; it burdens him like a chain,
prompting a compelling need for solution. At
objects would seem to have an almost exaggerated value,
should they chance to represent the idea of a severance
or release that might lead to the discoveiy of a new
possibility. Yet no sooner have they performed th e i r
office, serving intuition as a ladder or a bridge, than they
464 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
appear to have no further value, and are discarded as mere
burdensome appendages. A fact is acknowledged only
in so far as it opens up fresh possibilities of advancing
beyond it and of releasing the individual from its opera*
tion. Emerging possibilities are compelling motives
from which intuition cannot escape and to which all else
must be sacrificed.
9. The Extraverted Intuitive Type
Whenever intuition predominates, a particular and un-
mistakable psychology presents itself. Because intuition
is orientated by the object, a decided dependence upon
external situations is discernible, but it has an altogether
different character from the dependence of the sensational
type. The intuitive is never to be found among the
generally recognized reality values, but he is always
present where possibilities exist. He has a keen nose
for things in the bud pregnant with future promise. He
can never exist in stable, long-established conditions of
generally acknowledged though limited value: because
his eye is constantly ranging for new possibilities, stable
conditions have an air of impending suffocatioa He
seizes hold of new objects and new ways with eager
intensity, sometimes with extraordinary enthusiasm, only
to abandon them cold-bloodedly, without regard and
apparently without remembrance, as soon as their range
becomes clearly defined and a promise of any considerable
future development no longer clings to them. As long
as a possibility exists, the intuitive is bound to it with
thongs of fate. It is as though his whole life went out
into the new situation. One gets the impression, which
he himself shares, that he has just reached the definitive
turning point in his life, and that from now on nothing
else can seriously engage his thought and feeling. How*
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 465
ever reasonable and opportune it may be, and although
every conceivable argument speaks in favour of stability,
a day will come when nothing will deter him from regard-
ing as a prison, the self-same situation that seemed to
promise him freedom and deliverance, and from acting
accordingly. Neither reason nor feeling can restrain or
discourage him from a new possibility, even though it may
run counter to convictions hitherto unquestioned. Think-
ing and feeling, the indispensable components of conviction,
are, with him, inferior functions, possessing no decisive
weight; hence they lack the power to offer any lasting
resistance to the force of intuition. And yet these are the
only functions that are capable of creating any effectual
compensation to the supremacy of intuition, since they
can provide the intuitive with that judgment in which his
type is altogether lacking. The morality of the intuitive
is governed neither by intellect nor by feeling; he has
his own characteristic morality, which consists in a loyalty
to his intuitive view of things and a voluntary submission
to its authority. Consideration for the welfare of his
neighbours is weak. No solid argument hinges upon
their well-being any more than upon his own. Neither
can we detect in him any great respect for his neighbour’s
convictions and customs; in fact, he is not infrequently
put down as an immoral and ruthless adventurer. Since
his intuition is largely concerned with outer objects,
scenting out external possibilities, he readily applies
himself to callings wherein he may expand his abilities
in many directions. Merchants, contractors, speculators,
agents, politicians, etc., commonly belong to this type.
Apparently this type is more prone to favour women
than men; in which case, however, the intuitive activity
reveals itself not so much in the professional as in the
social sphere. Such women understand the art of utilizing
every social opportunity; they establish right social con-
466
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
nections; they seek out lovers with possibilities only
to abandon everything again for the sake of a new
possibility.
It is at once clear, both from the standpoint of political
economy and on grounds of general culture, that such a
type is uncommonly important. If well-intentioned, with
an orientation to life riot purely egoistical, he may render
exceptional service as the promoter, if not the initiator
of every kind of promising enterprise. He is the natural
advocate of every minority that holds the seed of future
promise. Because of his capacity, when orientated more
towards men than things, to make an intuitive diagnosis
of their abilities and range of usefulness, he can also
c make ’ men. His capacity to inspire his fellow-men with
courage, or to kindle enthusiasm for something new, is
unrivalled, although he may have forsworn it by the
morrow. The more powerful and vivid his intuition, the
more is his subject fused and blended with the divined
possibility. He animates it; he presents it in plastic
shape and with convincing fire; he almost embodies it.
It is not a mere histrionic display, but a fate.
This attitude has immense dangers — all too easily the
intuitive may squander his life. He spends himself animat-
ing men and things, spreading around him an abundance
of life — a life, however, which others live, not he. Were
he able to rest with the actual thing, he would gather the
fruit of his labours ; yet all too soon must he be running
after some fresh possibility, quitting his newly planted field,
while others reap the harvest. In the end he goes empty
away. But when the intuitive lets things reach such a
pitch, he also has the unconscious against him. The
unconscious of the intuitiye has a certain similarity with
that of the sensation-type. Thinking and feeling, being
relatively repressed, produce infantile and archaic thoughts
and feelings in the unconscious, which maybe compared
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 467
with those of the countertype. They likewise come to
the surface in the form of intensive projections, and are
just as absurd as those of the sensation-type, only to my
mind they lack the other’s mystical character; they are
chiefly concerned with quasi-actual things, in the nature
of sexual, financial, and other hazards, as, for instance,
suspicions of approaching illness. This difference appears
to be due to a repression of the sensations of actual things.
These latter usually command attention in the shape of
a sudden entanglement with a most unsuitable woman,
or, in the case of a woman, with a thoroughly unsuitable
man ; and this is simply the result of their unwitting con-
tact with the sphere of archaic sensations. But its con-
sequence is an unconsciously compelling tie to an object
of incontestable futility. Such an event is already a com-
pulsive symptom, which is also thoroughly characteristic-
of this type. In common with the sensation-type, he
claims a similar freedom and exemption from all restraint,
since he suffers no submission of his decisions to rational
judgment, relying entirely upon the perception of chance
possibilities. He rids himself of the restrictions of reason,
only to fall a victim to unconscious neurotic compulsions
in the form of oversubtle, negative reasoning, hair-splitting
dialectics, and a compulsive tie to the sensation of the
object. His conscious attitude, both to the sensation and
the sensed object, is one of sovereign superiority and dis-
regard. Not that he means to be inconsiderate or superior
— he simply does not see the object that everyone else sees ;
his oblivion is similar to that of the sensation-type — only,
with the latter, the soul of the object is missed. For this
oblivion the object sooner or later takes revenge in the
form of hypochondriacal, compulsive ideas, phobias, and
every imaginable kind of absurd bodily sensation.
468
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
10. Recapitulation of Extroverted Irrational Types
I call the two preceding types irrational for reasons
already referred to; namely, because their commissions
and omissions are based not upon reasoned judgment
but upon the absolute intensity of perception. Their
perception is concerned with simple happenings, where
no selection has been exercised by the judgment In
this respect both the latter types have a considerable
superiority over the two judging types. The objective
occurrence is both law-determined and accidental. In so
far as it is law-determined, it is accessible to reason ; in
so far as it is accidental, it is not One might reverse it
and say that we apply the term law-determined to the
occurrence appearing so to our reason, and where its
regularity escapes us we call it accidental. The postulate
of a universal lawfulness remains a postulate of reason
only; in no sense is it a postulate of our functions of
perception. Since these are in no way grounded upon
the principle of reason and its postulates, they are, of
their very nature, irrational. Hence my term ‘ irrational *
corresponds with the nature of the perception-types. But
merely because they subordinate judgment to perception,
it would be quite incorrect to regard these types as un-
reasonable. They are merely in a high degree empirical;
they are grounded exclusively upon experience, so ex-
clusively, in fact, that as a rule, their judgment cannot
keep pace with their experience. But the functions of
judgment are none the less present, although they eke
out a largely unconscious existence. But, since the
unconscious, in spite of its separation from the conscious
subject, is always reappearing on the scene, the actual life
of the irrational types exhibits striking judgments and
acts of choice, which take the form of apparent sophistries,
cold-hearted criticisms, and an apparently purposeful
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 469
selection of persons and situations. These traits have a
rather infantile, or even primitive, stamp; at times they
are astonishingly naive,, but at times also inconsiderate,
crude, or outrageous. To the rationally orientated mind,
the real character of such people might well appear
rationalistic and purposeful in the bad sense. But this
judgment would be valid only for their unconscious, and,
therefore, quite incorrect for their conscious psychology,
which is entirely orientated by perception, and because of
its irrational nature is quite unintelligible to the rational
judgment Finally, it may even appear to a rationally
orientated mind that such an assemblage of accidentals,
hardly deserves the name ‘psychology.’ The irrational
type balances this contemptuous judgment with an equally
poor impression of the rational ; for he sees him as some-
thing only half alive, whose only aim in life consists in
fastening the fetters of reason upon everything living, and
wringing his own neck with criticisms. Naturally, these
are gross extremes ; but they occur.
From the standpoint of the rational type, the irrational
might easily be represented as a rational of inferior quality ;
namely, when he is apprehended in the light of what
happens to him. For what happens to him is not the
accidental — in that he is master — but, in its stead, he is
overtaken by rational judgment and rational aims. This
fact is hardly comprehensible to the rational mind, but its
unthinkableness merely equals the astonishment of the
irrational, when he discovers someone who can set the
ideas of reason above the living and actual event. Such
a thing seems scarcely credible to him. It is, as a rule,
quite hopeless to look to him for any recognition of
principles in this direction, since a rational understanding
is just as unknown and, in fact, tiresome to him as the
idea of making a contract, without mutual discussion and
obligations, appears unthinkable to the rational tvne.
470 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
This point brings me to the problem of the psychic
relation between the representatives of the different types.
Following the terminology of the French school of
hypnotists, the psychic relation among the more modem
psychiatrists is termed 4 rapport*. Rapport chiefly consists
in a feeling of actual accord, in spite of recognised differ-
ences. In fact, the recognition of existing differences,
in so far as they are common to both, is already a rapport,
a feeling of accord. If we make this feeling conscious to
a rather high degree in an actual case, we discover that it
has not merely the quality of a feeling that cannot be
analysed further, but it also has the nature of an insight
or cognitional content, representing the point of agreement
in a conceptual form. This rational presentation is ex-
clusively valid for the rational types; it by no means
applies to the irrational, whose rapport is based not at all
upon judgment but upon the parallelism of actual living
events. His feeling of accord is the common perception
of a sensation or intuition. The rational would say that
rapport with the irrational depends purely upon chance.
If, by some accident, the objective situations are exactly
in tune, something like a human relationship takes place,
but nobody can tell what will be either its validity or its
duration. To the rational type it is often a very bitter
thought that the relationship will last only just so long as ex-
ternal circumstances accidentally produce a mutual interest.
This does not occur to him as being especially human,
whereas it is precisely in this situation that the irrational
sees a humanity of quite singular beauty. Accordingly
each regards the other as a man destitute of relationships,
upon whom no reliance can be placed, and with whom one
can never get on decent terms. Such a result, however,
is reached only when one consciously tries to make some
estimate of the nature of one's relationships with one’s
fellow-men. Although a psychological conscientiousness of
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 471
this kind is by no means usual, yet it frequently happens
that, notwithstanding an absolute difference of standpoint,
a kind of rapport does take place, and in the following
way. The one assumes with unspoken projection that the
other is, in all essential points, of the same opinion as
himself, while the other divines or senses an objective
community of interest, of which, however, the former has
no conscious inkling and whose existence he would at once
dispute, just as it would never occur to the latter that his
relationship must rest upon a common point-of-view. A
rapport of this kind is by far the most frequent ; it rests
upon projection, which is the source of many subsequent
misunderstandings.
Psychic relationship, in the extraverted attitude, is
always regulated by objective factors and outer deter-
minants. What a man is within has never any decisive
significance. For our present-day culture the extraverted
attitude is the governing principle in the problem of human
relationship; naturally, the introverted principle occurs,
but it is still the exception, and has to appeal to the
tolerance of the age.
0. THE INTROVERTED TYPE
(I) THE GENERAL ATTITUDE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
As I have already explained in section A (I) of the
present chapter, the introverted is distinguished from the
extraverted type by the fact that, unlike the latter, who is
prevailingly orientated by the object and objective data, he
is governed by subjective factors. In the section alluded
to I mentioned, inter alia, that the introvert interposes a
subjective view between the perception of the object and
his own action, which prevents the action from assuming
a character that corresponds with the objective situation.
Naturally, this is a special case, mentioned by way of
47* GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
example, and merely intended to serve as a simple illustra-
tion. But now we must go in quest of more general
formulations.
Introverted consciousness doubtless views the external
conditions, but it selects the subjective determinants as
the decisive ones. The type is guided, therefore, by that
factor of perception and cognition which represents the
receiving subjective disposition to the sense stimulus.
Two persons, for example, see the same object, but they
never see it in such a way as to receive two identically
similar images of it. Quite apart from the differences in
the personal equation and mere organic acuteness, there
often exists a radical difference, both in kind and degree,
in the psychic assimilation of the perceived image.
Whereas the extraverted type refers pre-eminently to that
which reaches him from the object, the introvert principally
relies upon that which the outer impression constellates in
the subject. In an individual case of apperception, the
difference may, of course, be very delicate, but in the total
psychological economy it is extremely noticeable, especially
in the form of a reservation of the ego . Although it is
anticipating somewhat, I consider that point of view which
inclines, with Weininger, to describe this attitude as
philautic, or with other writers, as autoerotic, egocentric,
subjective, or egoistic, to be both misleading in principle
and definitely depredatory. It corresponds with the
normal bias of the extraverted attitude against the nature
of the introvert. We must not forget — although extra-
verted opinion is only too prone to do so — that all percep-
tion and cognition is not purely objective: it is also
subjectively conditioned. The world exists not merely in
itself, but also as it appears to me. Indeed, at bottom,
we have absolutely no criterion that could help us to form
a judgment of a world whose nature was unassimilable by
the subject. If we were to ignore the subjective factor, it
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 473
would mean a complete denial of the great doubt as to the
possibility of absolute cognition. And this would mean
a rechute into that stale and hollow positivism which
disfigured the beginning of our epoch — an attitude of
intellectual arrogance that is invariably accompanied by a
crudeness of feeling, and an essential violation of life, as
stupid as it is presumptuous. Through an overvaluation
of the objective powers of cognition, we repress the import-
ance of the subjective factor, which simply means the
denial of the subject. But what is the subject? The
subject is man — we are the subject. Only a sick mind
could forget that cognition must have a subject, for there
exists no knowledge and, therefore, for us, no world where
1 1 know ’ has not been said, although with this statement
one has already expressed the subjective limitation of all
knowledge.
The same holds good for all the psychic functions:
they have a subject which is just as indispensable as the
object. It is characteristic of our present extraverted
valuation that the word ‘ subjective * occasionally rings
almost like a reproach or blemish ; but in every case the
epithet ‘merely subjective* means a dangerous weapon of
offence, destined for that daring head, that is not unceasingly
convinced of the unconditioned superiority of the object
We must, therefore, be quite clear as to what meaning the
term ‘subjective* carries in this investigation. As the
subjective factor, then, I understand that psychological
action or reaction which, when merged with the effect
of the object, makes a new psychic fact. Now, in so far
as the subjective factor, since oldest times and among all
peoples, remains in a very large measure identical with
itself — since elementary perceptions and cognitions are
almost universally the same — it is a reality that is just as
firmly established as the outer object. If this were not
to, any sort of permanent and essentially changeless reality
Q*
474 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
would be altogether inconceivable, and any understanding
with posterity would be a matter of impossibility. Thus
far, therefore, the subjective factor is something that is just
as much a fact as the extent of the sea and the radius of
the earth. Thus far, also, the subjective factor claims the
whole value of a world-determining power which can never,
under any circumstances, be excluded from our calculations.
It is the other world-laW, and the man who is based upon
it has a foundation just as secure, permanent, and valid,
as the man who relies upon the object. But, just as the
object and objective data remain by no means always
the same, inasmuch as they are both perishable and
subject to chance, the subjective factor is similarly liable
to variability and individual hazard. Hence its value is
also merely relative. The excessive development of the
introverted standpoint in consciousness, for instance, does
not lead to a better or sounder application of the subjective
factor, but to an artificial subjectification of consciousness,
which can hardly escape the reproach ‘ merely subjective ’.
For, as a countertendency to this morbid subjectification,
there ensues a desubjectification of consciousness in the
form of an exaggerated extraverted attitude which richly
deserves Weininger’s description “ misautic ”. Inasmuch
as the introverted attitude is based upon a universally
present, extremely real, and absolutely indispensable
condition of psychological adaptation, such expressions as
t philautic , , * egocentric and the like are both objection-
able and out of place, since they foster the prejudice that
it is invariably a question of the beloved ego. Nothing
could be more absurd than such an assumption. Yet one
is continually meeting it when examining the judgments
of the extravert upon the introvert. Not, of course, that
I wish to ascribe such an error to individual extraverts;
it is rather the present generally accepted extraverted
view which is by no means restricted to the extraverted
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 475
type ; for it finds just as many representatives in the ranks
of the other type, albeit very much against its own interest
The reproach of being untrue to his own kind is justly
levelled at the latter, whereas, this, at least, can never be
charged against the former.
The introverted attitude is normally governed by
the psychological structure, theoretically determined by
heredity, but which to the subject is an ever present sub-
jective factor. This must not be assumed, however, to be
simply identical with the subject’s ego, an assumption that
is certainly implied in the above mentioned designations
of Weininger ; it is rather the psychological structure of
the subject that precedes any development of the ego.
The really fundamental subject, the Self, is far more
comprehensive than the ego, because the former also
embraces the unconscious, while the latter is essentially the
focal point of consciousness. Were the ego identical with
the Self, it would be unthinkable that we should be able
to appear in dreams in entirely different forms and with
entirely different meanings. But it is a characteristic peculi-
arity of the introvert, which, moreover, is as much in keep-
ing with his own inclination as with the general bias, that
he tends to confuse his ego with the Self, and to exalt his
ego to the position of subject of the psychological process,
thus effecting that morbid subjectification of consciousness,
mentioned above, which so alienates him from the object
The psychological structure is the same. Semon has
termed it ‘ mneme ’ \ whereas I call it the * collective
unconscious'. The individual Self is a portion, or excerpt,
or representative, of something universally present in all
living creatures, and, therefore, a correspondingly graduated
kind of psychological process, which is bom anew in every
creature. Since earliest times, the inborn manner of acting
* Semon, Mneme, translated by Louis Simon (London : Allen &
Unwin).
476 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
has been called instinct , and for this manner of psychic
apprehension of the object I have proposed the term
archetype . I may assume that what is understood by
instinct is familiar to everyone. It is another matter with
the archetype. This term embraces the same idea as is
contained in * primordial image * (an expression borrowed
from Jakob Burckhardt), and as such I have described it
in Chapter xi of this book. I must here refer the reader
to that chapter, in particular to the definition of ‘ image \
The archetype is a symbolical formula, which always
begins to function whenever there are no conscious ideas
present, or when such as are present are impossible upon
intrinsic or extrinsic grounds. The contents of the
collective unconscious are represented in consciousness in
the form of pronounced tendencies, or definite ways of
looking at things. They are generally regarded by the
individual as being determined by the object — incorrectly,
at bottom — since they have their source in the unconscious
structure of the psyche, and are only released by the
operation of the object. These subjective tendencies
and ideas are stronger than the objective influence;
because their psychic value is higher, they are super-
imposed upon all impressions. Thus, just as it seems
incomprehensible to the introvert that the object should
always be decisive, it remains just as enigmatic to the
extravert how a subjective standpoint can be superior
to the objective situation. He reaches the unavoidable
conclusion that the introvert is either a conceited egoist
or a fantastic doctrinaire. Recently he seems to have
reached the conclusion that the introvert is constantly
influenced by an unconscious power-complex. The intro-
vert unquestionably exposes himself to this prejudice ; for
it cannot be denied that his definite and highly generalized
mode of expression, which apparently excludes every
other view from the outset, lends a certain countenance to
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
477
this extraverted opinion. Furthermore, the very decisive-
ness and inflexibility of the subjective judgment, which is
superordinated to all objective data, is alone sufficient to
create the impression of a strong ego-centridty. The intro-
vert usually lacks the right argument in presence of this
prejudice ; for he is just as unaware of the unconscious,
though thoroughly sound presuppositions of his subjective
judgment, as he is of his subjective perceptions. In
har mony with the style of the times, he looks without,
instead of behind his own consciousness for the answer.
Should he become neurotic, it is the sign of a more or less
complete unconscious identity of the ego with the Self,
whereupon the importance of the Self is reduced to nil,
while the ego becomes inflated beyond reason. The un-
deniable^ world-determining power of the subjective factor
then becomes concentrated in the ego, developing an
immoderate power claim and a downright foolish ego-
centricity. Every psychology which reduces the nature
of man to unconscious power instinct springs from this
foundation. For example, Nietzsche’s many faults in
taste owe their existence to this subjectification of
consciousness.
(II) THE UNCONSCIOUS ATTITUDE
The superior position of the subjective factor in
consciousness involves an inferiority of the objective factor.
The object is not given that importance which should
really belong to it. Just as it plays too great a rdle in
the extraverted attitude, it has too little to say in the
introverted. To the extent that the introvert’s conscious-
ness is subjectified, thus bestowing undue importance upon
the ego, the object is placed in a position which in time
becomes quite untenable. The object is a factor of un-
deniable power, while the ego is something very restricted
478 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
and transitory. It would be a very different matter if the
Self opposed the object. Self and world are commensur-
able factors; hence a normal introverted attitude is just
as valid, and has as good a right to existence, as a normal
extraverted attitude. *But, if the ego has usurped the
claims of the subject, a compensation naturally develops
under the guise of an unconscious reinforcement of the
influence of the object Such a change eventually com-
mands attention, for often, in spite of a positively
convulsive attempt to ensure the superiority of the ego,
the object and objective data develop an overwhelming
influence, which is all the more invincible because it
seizes upon the individual unawares, thus effecting an
irresistible invasion of consciousness. As a result of the
ego’s defective relation to the object — for a will to
command is not adaptation — a compensatory relation to
the object develops in the unconscious, which makes itself
felt in consciousness as an unconditional and irrepressible
tie to the object The more the ego seeks to secure every
possible liberty, independence, superiority, and freedom
from obligations, the deeper does it fall into the slavery
of objective facts. The subject’s freedom of mind is
chained to an ignominious financial dependence, his un-
concemedness of action suffers now and again, a distressing
collapse in the face of public opinion, his moral superiority
gets swamped in inferior relationships, and his desire to
dominate ends in a pitiful craving to be loved. The chief
concern of the unconscious in such a case is the relation to
the object, and it affects this in a way that is calculated to
bring both the power illusion and the superiority phantasy
to utter ruin. The object assumes terrifying dimensions,
in spite of conscious depreciation. Detachment from, and
command of, the object are, in consequence, pursued by
the ego still more violently. Finally, the ego surrounds
itself by a regular system of safeguards (Adler has ably
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 479
depicted these) which shall at least preserve the illusion
of superiority. But, therewith, the introvert severs himself
completely from the object, and either squanders his energy
in defensive measures or makes fruitless attempts to impose
his power upon the object and successfully assert himself.
But these efforts are constantly being frustrated by the
overwhelming impressions he receives from the object
It continually imposes itself upon him against his will ; it
provokes in him the most disagreeable and obstinate
affects, persecuting him at every step. An immense, inner
struggle is constantly required of him, in order to ‘ keep
going.* Hence psychoasthenia is his typical form of neurosis,
a malady which is characterized on the one hand by an
extreme sensitiveness, and on the other by a great liability
to exhaustion and chronic fatigue.
An analysis of the personal unconscious yields an
abundance of power phantasies coupled with fear of the
dangerously animated objects, to which, as a matter of
fact, the introvert easily falls a victim. For a peculiar
cowardliness develops from this fear of the object; he
shrinks from making either himself or his opinion effective,
always dreading an intensified influence on the part of the
object. He is terrified of impressive affects in others, and
is hardly ever free from the dread of falling under hostile
influence. For objects possess terrifying and powerful
qualities for him— qualities which he cannot consciously
discern in them, but which, through his unconscious per-
ception, he cannot choose but believe in. Since his
conscious relation to the object is relatively repressed, its
exit is by way of the unconscious, where it becomes loaded
with the qualities of the unconscious. These qualities are
primarily infantile and archaic. His relation to the object,
therefore, becomes correspondingly primitive, taking on all
those peculiarities which characterize the primitive object-
relationship. Now it seems as though objects possessed
480
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
magical powers. Strange, new objects excite fear and
distrust, as though concealing unknown dangers ; objects
long rooted and blessed by tradition are attached to his
soul as by invisible threads ; every change has a disturbing,
if not actually dangerous aspect, since its apparent implica-
tion is a magical animation of the object A lonely island
where only what is permitted to move moves, becomes an
ideal. Auch Einer, the novel, by F. Th. Vischer, gives a
rich insight into this side of the introvert’s psychology,
and at the same time shows the underlying symbolism of
the collective unconscious, which in this description of
types I am leaving on one side, since it is a universal
phenomenon with no especial connection with types.
(Ill) PECULIARITIES OF THE BASIC PSYCHO-
LOGICAL FUNCTIONS IN THE INTROVERTED
ATTITUDE
1. Thinking
When describing extraverted thinking, I gave a brief
characterization of introverted thinking, to which at this
stage I must make further reference. Introverted thinking
is primarily orientated by the subjective factor. At the
least, this subjective factor is represented by a subjective
feeling of direction, which, in the last resort, determines
judgment Occasionally, it is a more or less finish*^
image, which to some extent, serves as a standard. This
thinking may be conceived either with concrete or with
abstract factors, but always at the decisive points it is
orientated by subjective data. Hence, it does not lead
from concrete experience back again into objective things,
but always to the subjective content. External facts are
not the aim and origin of this thinking, although the intro-
vert would often like to make it so appear. It begins in
the subject, and returns to the subject, although it may
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 481
undertake the widest flights into the territory of the real
and the actual. Hence, in the statement of new facts,
its chief value is indirect, because new views rather than
the perception of new facts are its main concern. It
formulates questions and creates theories; it opens up
prospects and yields insight, but in the presence of facts
it exhibits a reserved demeanour. As illustrative examples
they have their value, but they must not prevail. Facts
are collected as evidence or examples for a theory, but
never for their own sake. Should this latter ever occur,
it is done only as a compliment to the extraverted style.
For this kind of thinking facts are of secondary im-
portance; what, apparently, is of absolutely paramount
importance is the development and presentation of the
subjective idea, that primordial symbolical image standing
more or less darkly before the inner vision. Its aim,
therefore, is never concerned with an intellectual recon-
struction of concrete actuality, but with the shaping of
that dim image into a resplendent idea. Its desire is to
reach reality ; its goal is to see how external facts fit into,
and fulfil, the framework of the idea; its actual creative
power is proved by the fact that this thinking can also
create that idea which, though not present in the external
facts, is yet the most suitable, abstract expression of them.
Its task is accomplished when the idea it has fashioned
seems to emerge so inevitably from the external facts
that they actually prove its validity.
But just as little as it is given to extraverted thinking
to wrest a really sound inductive idea from concrete facts
or ever to create new ones, does it lie in the power of
introverted thinking to translate its original image into
an idea adequately adapted to the facts. For, as in the
former case the purely empirical heaping together of facts
paralyses thought and smothers their meaning, so in the
latter case introverted thinking shows a dangerous tendency
4 6 * GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
to coerce facts into the shape of its image, or by ignoring
them altogether, to unfold its phantasy image in freedom.
In such a case, it will be impossible for the presented idea
to deny its origin from the dim archaic image. There will
cling to it a certain mythological character that we are
prone to interpret as ‘ originality ’, or in more pronounced
cases as mere whimsicality; since its archaic character
is not transparent as such to specialists unfamiliar with
mythological motives. The subjective force of conviction
inherent in such an idea is usually very great ; its power
too is the more convincing, the less it is influenced by
contact with outer facts. Although to the man who
advocates the idea, it may well seem that his scanty store
of facts were the actual ground and source of the truth
and validity of his idea, yet such is not the case, for the
idea derives its convincing power from its unconscious
archetype, which, as such, has universal validity and ever-
lasting truth. Its truth, however, is so universal and
symbolic, that it must first enter into the recognized and
recognizable knowledge of the time, before it can become
a practical truth of any real value to life. What sort of
a causality would it be, for instance, that never became
perceptible in practical causes and practical results?
This thinking easily loses itself in the immense truth
of the subjective factor. It creates theories for the sake
of theories, apparently with a view to real or at least
possible facts, yet always with a distinct tendency to go
over from the world of ideas into mere imagery. Accord-
ingly many intuitions of possibilities appear on the scene,
none of which however achieve any reality, until finally
images are produced which no longer express anything
externally real, being ‘merely* symbols of the simply
unknowable. It is now merely a mystical thinking and
quite as unfruitful as that empirical thinking whose sole
operation is within the framework of objective facts.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 483
Whereas the latter sinks to the level of a mere presenta-
tion of facts, the former evaporates into a representation
of the unknowable, which is even beyond everything that
could be expressed in an image. The presentation of
facts has a certain incontestable truth, because the sub-
jective factor is excluded and the facts speak for them-
selves. Similarly, the representing of the unknowable
has also an immediate, subjective, and convincing power,
because it is demonstrable from its own existence. The
former says ‘ Est, ergo est ’ (‘ It is ; therefore it is ’) ; while
the latter says ‘ Cogito, ergo cogito * (‘ I think ; therefore
I think '). In the last analysis, introverted thinking arrives
at the evidence of its own subjective being, while extra-
verted thinking is driven to the evidence of its complete
identity with the objective fact For, while the extravert
really denies himself in his complete dispersion among
objects, the introvert, by ridding himself of each and every
content, has to content himself with his mere existence.
In both cases the further development of life is crowded
out of the domain of thought into the region of other
psychic functions which had hitherto existed in relative
unconsciousness. The extraordinary impoverishment of
introverted thinking in relation to objective facts finds
compensation in an abundance of unconscious facts.
Whenever consciousness, wedded to the function of
thought, confines itself within the smallest and emptiest
circle possible — though seeming to contain the plenitude
of divinity — unconscious phantasy becomes proportionately
enriched by a multitude of archaically formed facts, a
veritable pandemonium of magical and irrational factors,
wearing the particular aspect that accords with the nature
of that function which shall next relieve the thought-
function as the representative of life. If this should be the
intuitive function, the i other side ’ will be viewed with the
eyes of a Kubin or a Meyrink. If it is the feeling-function,
484 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
there arise quite unheard of and fantastic feeling-relations,
coupled with feeling-judgments of a quite contradictory
and unintelligible character. If the sensation-function,
then the senses discover some new and never-before
experienced possibility, both within and without the
body. A closer investigation of such changes can easily
demonstrate the reappearance of primitive psychology
with all its characteristic features. Naturally, the thing
experienced is not merely primitive but also symbolic;
in fact, the older and more primeval it appears, the more
does it represent the future truth : since everything ancient
in our unconscious means the coming possibility.
Under ordinary circumstances, not even the transition
to the ‘other side’ succeeds — still less the redeeming
journey through the unconscious. The passage across is
chiefly prevented by conscious resistance to any subjection
of the ego to the unconscious reality and to the deter-
mining reality of the unconscious object. The condition
is a dissociation — in other words, a neurosis having the
character of an inner wastage with increasing brain-
exhaustion — a psychoasthenia, in fact.
2. The Introverted Thinking Type
Just as Darwin might possibly represent the normal
extraverted thinking type, so we might point to Kant as
a counter-example of the normal introverted thinking type.
The former speaks with facts; the latter appeals to the
subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide fields of
objective facts, while Kant restricts himself to a critique
of knowledge in general. But suppose a Cuvier be con-
trasted with a Nietzsche: the antithesis becomes even
sharper.
The introverted thinking type is characterized by a
priority of the thinking I have just described. Like his
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
4*5
extraverted parallel, he is decisively influenced by ideas ;
these, however, have their origin, not in the objective data
but in the subjective foundation. Like the extravert, he
too will follow his ideas, but in the reverse direction :
inwardly not outwardly. Intensity is his aim, not extensity.
In these fundamental characters he differs markedly,
indeed quite unmistakably from his extraverted parallel.
Like every introverted type, he is almost completely
lacking in that which distinguishes his counter type,
namely, the intensive relatedness to the object In the
case of a human object, the man has a distinct feeling
that he matters only, in a negative way, in milder
instances he is merely conscious of being superfluous, but
with a more extreme type he feels himself warded off as
something definitely disturbing. This negative relation
to the object — indifference, and even aversion — character-
izes every introvert; it also makes a description of the
introverted type in general extremely difficult With him,
everything tends to disappear and get concealed. His
judgment appears cold, obstinate, arbitrary, and incon-
siderate, simply because he is related l ess to the object
than the subject One can feel nothing in it that might
possibly confer a higher value upon the object ; it always
seems to go beyond the object, leaving behind it a flavour
of a certain subjective superiority. Courtesy, amiability,
and friendliness may be present, but often with a particular
quality suggesting a certain uneasiness, which betrays an
ulterior aim, namely, the disarming of an opponent, who
must at all costs be pacified and set at ease lest he prove
a disturbing element In no sense, of course, is he an
opponent, but, if at all sensitive, he will feel somewhat
repelled, perhaps even depreciated. Invariably the object
has to submit to a certain neglect; in worse cases it is
even surrounded with quite unnecessary measures of
precaution. Thus it happens that this type tends to
486 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
disappear behind a cloud of misunderstanding, which only
thickens the more he attempts to assume, by way of
compensation and with the help of his inferior functions,
a certain mask of urbanity, which often presents a most
vivid contrast to his real nature. Although in the
extension of his world of ideas he shrinks from no risk,
however daring, and never even considers the possibility
that such a world might also be dangerous, revolutionary,
heretical, and wounding to feeling, he is none the less a
prey to the liveliest anxiety, should it ever chance to
become objectively real. That goes against the grain.
When the time comes for him to transplant his ideas
into the world, his is by no means the air of an anxious
mother solicitous for her children’s welfare; he merely
exposes them, and is often extremely annoyed when
they fail to thrive on their own account The decided
lack he usually displays in practical ability, and his
aversion from any sort of reclame assist in this attitude.
If to his eyes his product appears subjectively correct and
true, it must also be so in practice, and others have
simply got to bow to its truth. Hardly ever will he go
out of his way to win anyone’s appreciation of it, especially
if it be anyone of influence. And, when he brings himself
to do so, he is usually so extremely maladroit that he
merely achieves the opposite of his purpose. In his own
special province, there are usually awkward experiences
with his colleagues, since he never knows how to win
their favour ; as a rule he only succeeds in showing them
how entirely superfluous they are to him. In the pursuit
of his ideas he is generally stubborn, head-strong, and
quite unamenable to influence. His suggestibility to
personal influences is in strange contrast to this. An
object has only to be recognized as apparently innocuous
for such a type to become extremely accessible to really
inferior elements. They lay hold of him from the
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 487
unconscious. He lets himself be brutalized and exploited
in the most ignominious way, if only he can be left
undisturbed in the pursuit of his ideas. He simply does
not see when he is being plundered behind his back and
wronged in practical ways: this is because his relation
to the object is such a secondary matter that he is left
without a guide in the purely objective valuation of his
product In thinking out his problems to the utmost of
his ability, he also complicates them, and constantly
becomes entangled in every possible scruple. However
clear to himself the inner structure of his thoughts may
be, he is not in the least clear where and how they link
up with the world of reality. Only with difficulty can he
persuade himself to admit that what is clear to him may
not be equally clear to everyone. His style is usually
loaded and complicated by all sorts of accessories, quali-
fications, saving clauses, doubts, etc., which spring from
his exacting scrupulousness. His work goes slowly and
with difficulty. Either he is taciturn or he falls among
people who cannot understand him ; whereupon he
proceeds to gather further proof of the unfathomable
stupidity of man. If he should ever chance to be under-
stood, he is credulously liable to overestimate. Ambitious
women have only to understand how advantage may be
taken of his uncritical attitude towards the object to
make an easy prey of him ; or he may develop into a
misanthropic bachelor with a childlike heart. Then, too,
his outward appearance is often gauche, as if he were
painfully anxious to escape observation ; or he may show
a remarkable unconcern, an almost childlike naivetd In
his own particular field of work he provokes violent
contradiction, with which he has no notion how to deal,
unless by chance he is seduced by his primitive affects
into biting and fruitless polemics. By his wider circle
he is counted inconsiderate and domineering. But the
4*8 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
better one knows him, the more favourable one's judgment
becomes, and his nearest friends are well aware how to
value his intimacy. To people who judge him from afar
he appears prickly, inaccessible, haughty ; frequently he
may even seem soured as a result of his anti-social
prejudices. He has little influence as a personal teacher,
since the mentality of his pupils is strange to him.
Besides, teaching has, at bottom, little interest for him,
except when it accidentally provides him with a theoretical
problem. He is a poor teacher, because while teaching
his thought is engaged with the actual material, and will
not be satisfied with its mere presentation.
With the intensification of his type, his convictions
become all the more rigid and unbending. Foreign
influences are eliminated ; he becomes more unsympathetic
to his peripheral world, and therefore more dependent upon
his intimates. His expression becomes more personal and
inconsiderate and his ideas more profound, but they can
no longer be adequately expressed in the material at hand.
This lack is replaced by emotivity and susceptibility.
The foreign influence, brusquely declined from without,
reaches him from within, from the side of the unconscious,
and he is obliged to collect evidence against it and against
things in general which to outsiders seems quite super-
fluous. Through the subjectification of consciousness
occasioned by his defective relationship to the object, what
secretly concerns his own person now seems to him of chief
importance. And he begins to confound his subjective
truth with his own person. Not that he will attempt to
press anyone personally with his convictions, but he will
break out with venompus and personal retorts against
every criticism, however just. Thus in every respect his
isolation gradually increases. His originally fertilizing ideas
become destructive, because poisoned by a kind of sediment
of bitterness. His struggle against the influences emanating
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
489
from the unconscious increases with his external isolation,
until gradually this begins to cripple him. A still greater
isolation must surely protect him from the unconscious
influences, but as a rule this only takes him deeper into
the conflict which is destroying him within.
The thinking of the introverted type is positive and
synthetic in the development of those ideas which in ever
increasing measure approach the eternal validity of the
primordial images. But, when their connection with
objective experience begins to fade, they become mytho-
logical and untrue for the present situation. Hence this
thinking holds value only for its contemporaries, just so
long as it also stands in visible and understandable con-
nection with the known facts of the time. But, when
thinking becomes mythological, its irrelevancy grows until
finally it gets lost in itself. The relatively unconscious
functions of feeling, intuition, and sensation, which counter-
balance introverted thinking, are inferior in quality and
have a primitive, extraverted character, to which all the
troublesome objective influences this type is subject to
must be ascribed. The various measures of self-defence,
the curious protective obstacles with which such people are
wont to surround themselves, are sufficiently familiar, and
I may, therefore, spare myself a description of them. They
all serve as a defence against ‘ magical ’ influences ; a vague
dread of the other sex also belongs to this categoxy.
& Feeling
Introverted feeling is determined principally by the
subjective factor. This means that the feeling-judgment
differs quite as essentially from extraverted feeling as does
the introversion of thinking from extraversion. It is un-
questionably difficult to give an intellectual presentation
of the introverted feeling process, or even an approximate
490 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
description of it, although the peculiar character of this
kind of feeling simply stands out as soon as one becomes
aware of it at all. Since it is primarily controlled by sub-
jective pre-conditions, and is only secondarily concerned
with the object, this feeling appears much less upon the
surface and is, as a rule, misunderstood. It is a feeling
which apparently depreciates the object ; hence it usually
becomes noticeable in its negative manifestations. The
existence of a positive feeling can be inferred only in-
directly, as it were. Its aim is not so much to accom-
modate to the objective fact as to stand above it, since its
whole unconscious effort is to give reality to the under-
lying images. It is, as it were, continually seeking an
image which has no existence in reality, but of which it
has had a sort of previous vision. From objects that can
never fit in with its aim it seems to glide unheedingly
away. It strives after an inner intensity, to which at the
most, objects contribute only an accessory stimulus. The
depths of this feeling can only be divined — they can never
be clearly comprehended. It makes men silent and
difficult of access; with the sensitiveness of the mimosa,
it shrinks from the brutality of the object, in order to
expand into the depths of the subject. It puts forward
negative feeling-judgments or assumes an air of profound
indifference, as a measure of self-defence.
Primordial images are, of course, just as much idea
as feeling. Thus, basic ideas such as God, freedom,
immortality are just as much feeling-values as they are
significant as ideas. Everything, therefore, that has been
said of the introverted thinking refers equally to intro-
verted feeling, only here everything is felt while there it
was thought But the fact that thoughts can generally
be expressed more intelligibly than feelings demands a
more than ordinary descriptive or artistic capacity before
the real wealth of this feeling can be even approximately
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
491
presented or communicated to the outer world. Whereas
subjective thinking, on account of its unrelatedness, finds
great difficulty in arousing an adequate understanding, the
same, though in perhaps even higher degree, holds good
for subjective feeling. In order to communicate with
others it has to find an external form which is not only
fitted to absorb the subjective feeling in a satisfying
expression, but which must also convey it to one’s fellow-
man in such a way that a parallel process takes place in
him. Thanks to the relatively great internal (as well as
external) similarity of the human being, this effect can
actually be achieved, although a form acceptable to feeling
is extremely difficult to find, so long as it is still mainly
orientated by the fathomless store of primordial images.
But, when it becomes falsified by an egocentric attitude,
it at once grows unsympathetic, since then its major
concern is still with the ego. Such a case never fails to
create an impression of sentimental self-love, with its
constant effort to arouse interest and even morbid self-
admiration. Just as the subjectified consciousness of the
introverted thinker, striving after an abstraction of abstrac-
tions, only attains a supreme intensity of a thought-process
in itself quite empty, so the intensification of egocentric
feeling only leads to a contentless passionateness, which
merely feels itself. This is the mystical, ecstatic stage,
which prepares the way over into the extraverted functions
repressed by feeling. Just as introverted thinking is
pitted against a primitive feeling, to which objects attach
themselves with magical force, so introverted feeling is
counterbalanced by a primitive thinking, whose concre-
tism and slavery to facts passes all bounds. Continually
emancipating itself from the relation to the object, this
feeling creates a freedom, both of action and of conscience,
that is only answerable to the subject, and that may even
renounce all traditional values. But so much the more
49a
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
does unconscious thinking fall a victim to the power of
objective facts.
4 The Introverted Feeling Type
r- *
It is principally among women that I have found the
priority of introverted feeling. The proverb ‘ Still waters
run deep ’ is very true of such women. They are mostly
silent, inaccessible, and hard to understand; often they
hide behind a childish or banal mask, and not infrequently
their temperament is melancholic. They neither shine nor
reveal themselves. Since they submit the control of their
lives to their subjectively orientated feeling, their true
motives generally remain concealed. Their outward
demeanour is harmonious and inconspicuous ; they reveal
a delightful repose, a sympathetic parallelism, which has
no desire to affect others, either to impress, influence, or
change them in any way. Should this outer side be some-
what emphasized, a suspicion of neglectfulness and coldness
may easily obtrude itself, which not seldom increases to
a real indifference for the comfort and well-being of others.
One distinctly feels the movement of feeling away from
the object. With the normal type, however, such an event
only occurs when the object has in some way too strong
an effect The harmonious feeling atmosphere rules only
so long as the object moves upon its own way with a
moderate feeling intensity, and makes no attempt to cross
the other’s path. There is little effort to accompany the
real emotions of the object, which tend to be damped and
rebuffed, or to put it more aptly, are ‘cooled off* by a
negative feeling-judgment Although one may find a
constant readiness for a peaceful and harmonious com-
panionship, the unfamiliar object is shown no touch of
amiability, no gleam of responding warmth, but is met
by a manner of apparent indifference or repelling coldness
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 493
One may even be made to feel the superfluousness of one’s
own existence. In the presence of something that might
carry one away or arouse enthusiasm, this type observes
a benevolent neutrality, tempered with an occasional trace
of superiority and criticism that soon takes the wind out
of the sails of a sensitive object. But a stormy emotion
will be brusquely rejected with murderous coldness, unless
it happens to catch the subject from the side of the
unconscious, t,e. unless, through the animation of some
primordial image, feeling is, as it were, taken captive. In
which event such a woman simply feels a momentary laming,
invariably producing, in due course, a still more violent
resistance, which reaches the object in his most vulnerable
spot. The relation to the object is, as far as possible,
kept in a secure and tranquil middle state of feeling, where
passion and its intemperateness are resolutely proscribed.
Expression of feeling, therefore, remains niggardly and,
when once aware of it at all, the object has a permanent
sense of his undervaluation. Such, however, is not always
the case, since very often the deficit remains unconscious ;
whereupon the unconscious feeling-claims gradually pro-
duce symptoms which compel a more serious attention.
A superficial judgment might well be betrayed, by a
rather cold and reserved demeanour, into denying all
feeling to this type. Such a view, however, would be quite
false; the truth is, her feelings are intensive rather than
extensive. They develop into the depth. Whereas, for
instance, an extensive feeling of sympathy can express
itself in both word and deed at the right place, thus quickly
ridding itself of its impression, an intensive sympathy,
because shut off from every means of expression, gains a
passionate depth that embraces the misery of a world and
is simply benumbed. It may possibly make an extravagant
irruption, leading to some staggering act of an almost
heroic character, to which, however, neither the object nor
494
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
the subject can find a right relation. To the outer world,
or to the blind eyes of the extravert, this sympathy looks
like coldness, for it does nothing visibly, and an extra-
verted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible
forces.
Such misunderstanding is a characteristic occurrence
in the life of this type, and is commonly registered as a
most weighty argument against any deeper feeling relation
with the object But the underlying, real object of this
feeling is only dimly divined by the normal type. It
may possibly express its aim and content in a concealed
religiosity anxiously shielded from profane eyes, or in
intimate poetic forms equally safeguarded from surprise;
not without a secret ambition to bring about some
superiority over the object by such means. Women often
express much of it in their children, letting their passion-
ateness flow secretly into them.
Although in the normal type, the tendency, above
alluded to, to overpower or coerce the object once openly
and visibly with the thing secretly felt, rarely plays a
disturbing rdle, and never leads to a serious attempt in
this direction, some trace of it, none the less, leaks through
into the personal effect upon the object, in the form of a
domineering influence often difficult to define. It is
sensed as a sort of stifling or oppressive feeling which
holds the immediate circle under a spell. It gives a
woman of this type a certain mysterious power that may
prove terribly fascinating to the extraverted man, for it
touches his unconscious. This power is derived from
the deeply felt, unconscious images ; consciousness, how-
ever, readily refers it to the ego, whereupon the influence
becomes debased into personal tyranny. But, wherever
the unconscious subject is identified with the ego, the
mysterious power of the intensive feeling is also trans-
formed into banal and arrogant ambition, vanity, and
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
495
petty tyranny. This produces a type of woman most
regrettably distinguished by her unscrupulous ambition
and mischievous cruelty. But this change in the picture
leads also to neurosis.
So long as the ego feels itself housed, as it were,
beneath the heights of the unconscious subject, and
feeling reveals something higher and mightier than the
ego, the type is normal. The unconscious thinking is
certainly archaic, yet its reductions may prove extremely
helpful in compensating the occasional inclinations to
exalt the ego into the subject. But, whenever this does
take place by dint of complete suppression of the uncon-
scious reductive thinking-products, the unconscious thinking
goes over into opposition and becomes projected into objects.
Whereupon the now egocentric subject comes to feel the
power and importance of the depreciated object. Con-
sciousness begins to feel ‘what others think’. Naturally,
others are thinking all sorts of baseness, scheming evil,
and contriving all sorts of plots, secret intrigues, etc. To
prevent this, the subject must also begin to carry out
preventive intrigues, to suspect and sound others, to make
subtle combinations. Assailed by rumours, he must make
convulsive efforts to convert, if possible, a threatened
inferiority into a superiority. Innumerable secret rivalries
develop, and in these embittered struggles not only will no
base or evil means be disdained, but even virtues will be
misused and tampered with in order to play the trump card.
Such a development must lead to exhaustion. The form
of neurosis is neurasthenic rather than hysterical; in the
case of women we often find severe collateral physical states,
as for instance anaemia and its sequelae.
5. Recapitulation of Introverted Rational Types
Both the foregoing types are r ational, since they are
founded upon r easoning, judging functio ns. Reasoning
4 g6 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
judgment is based not merely upon objective, but also upon
subjective, data. But the predominance of one or other
factor, conditioned by a psychic disposition often existing
from early youth, deflects the reasoning function. For a
judgment to be really reasonable it should have equal
reference to both the objective and the subjective factors,
and be able to do justice to both. This, however, would
be an ideal case, and would presuppose a uniform develop-
ment of both extraversion and introversion. But either
movement excludes the other, and, so long as this dilemma
persists, they cannot possibly exist side by side, but at the
most successively. Under ordinary circumstances, there-
fore, an ideal reason is impossible. A rational type has
always a typical reasonal variation. Thus, the introverted
rational types unquestionably have a reasoning judgment,
only it is a judgment whose leading note is subjective.
The laws of logic are not necessarily deflected, since its
onesidedness lies in the premise. The premise is the
predominance of the subjective factor existing beneath
every conclusion and colouring every judgment Its
superior value as compared with the objective factor is
self-evident from the beginning. As already stated, it is
not just a question of value bestowed, but of a natural
disposition existing before all rational valuation. Hence,
to the introvert rational judgment necessarily appears to
have many nuances which differentiate it from that of the
extravert Thus, to the introvert, to mention the most
general instance, that chain of reasoning which leads to
the subjective factor appears rather more reasonable than
that which leads to the object. This difference, which in
the individual case is practically insignificant, indeed
alm ost unnoticeable, effects unbridgeable oppositions in
the gross ; these are the more- irritating, the less we are
aware of the minimal standpoint displacement produced
by the psychological premise in the individual case A
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
497
capital error regularly creeps in here, for one labours to
prove a fallacy in the conclusion, instead of realizing the
difference of the psychological premise. Such a realization
is a difficult matter for every rational type, since it under-
mines the apparent, absolute validity of his own principle,
and delivers him over to its antithesis, which certainly
amounts to a catastrophe.
Almost more even than the extraverted is the introverted
type subject to misunderstanding : not so much because the
extravert is a more merciless or critical adversary, than he
himself can easily be, but because the style of the epoch in
which he himself participates is against him. Not in relation
to the extraverted type, but as against our general occidental
world-philosophy, he finds himself in the minority, not of
course numerically, but from the evidence of his own
feeling. In so far as he is a convinced participator in the
general style, he undermines his own foundations, since the
present style, with its almost exclusive acknowledgment
of the visible and the tangible, is opposed to his principle.
Because of its invisibility, he is obliged to depreciate the
subjective factor, and to force himself to join in the extra-
verted overvaluation of the object. He himself sets the
subjective factor at too low a value, and his feelings of
inferiority are his chastisement for this sin. Little wonder,
therefore, that it is precisely our epoch, and particularly
those movements which are somewhat ahead of the time,
that reveal the subjective factor in every kind of exagger-
ated, crude and grotesque form of expression. I refer to
the art of the present day.
The undervaluation of his own principle makes the
introvert egotistical, and forces upon him the psychology
of the oppressed. The more egotistical he becomes, the
stronger his impression grows that these others, who are
apparently able, without qualms, to conform with the present
style, are the oppressors against whom he must guard and
R
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
49 «
protect himself. He does not usually perceive that he
commits his capital mistake in not depending upon the
subjective factor with that same loyalty and devotion
with which the extravert follows the object By the
undervaluation of his own principle, his penchant towards
egoism becomes unavoidable, which, of course, richly
deserves the prejudice of the extravert. Were he only
to remain true to his own principle, the judgment of
‘egoist’ would be radically false; for the justification
of his attitude would be established by its general efficacy,
and all misunderstandings dissipated.
6. Sensation
Sensation, which in obedience to its whole nature is
concerned with the object and the objective stimulus, also
undergoes a considerable modification in the introverted
attitude. It, too, has a subjective factor, for beside the
object sensed there stands a sensing subject, who con-
tributes his subjective disposition to the objective stimulus.
In the introverted attitude sensation is definitely based
upon the subjective portion of perception. What is meant
by this finds its best illustration in the reproduction of
objects in art When, for instance, several painters under-
take to paint one and the same landscape, with a sincere
attempt to reproduce it faithfully, each painting will none
the less differ from the rest, not merely by virtue of a
more or less developed ability, but chiefly because of a
different vision; there will even appear in some of the
paintings a decided psychic variation, both in general
mood and in treatment of colour and form. Such qualities
betray a more or less influential co-operation of the sub-
jective factor. The subjective factor of sensation is
essentially the same as in the other functions already
spoken of. It is an unconscious disposition, which alters
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
499
the sense-perception at its very source, thus depriving it
of the character of a purely objective influence. In this
case, sensation is related primarily to the subject, and
only secondarily to the object How extraordinarily
strong the subjective factor can be is shown most clearly
in art. The ascendancy of the subjective factor occasion-
ally achieves a complete suppression of the mere influence
of the object ; but none the less sensation remains sensa-
tion, although it has come to be a perception of the sub-
jective factor, and the effect of the object has sunk to the
level of a mere stimulant. Introverted sensation develops
in accordance with this subjective direction. A true sense-
perception certainly exists, but it always looks as though
objects were not so much forcing their way into the subject
in their own right as that the subject were seeing things
quite differently, or saw quite other things than the rest
of mankind. As a matter of fact, the subject perceives
the same things as everybody else, only he never stops at
the purely objective effect, but concerns himself with the
subjective perception released by the objective stimulus.
Subjective perception differs remarkably from the objective.
It is either not found at all in the object, or, at most,
merely suggested by it; it can, however, be similar to
the sensation of other men, although not immediately
derived from the objective behaviour of things. It does
not impress one as a mere product of consciousness — it
is too genuine for that. But it makes a definite psychic
impression, since elements of a higher psychic order are
perceptible to it This order, however, does not coincide
with the contents of consciousness. It is concerned with
presuppositions, or dispositions of the collective unconscious,
with mythological images, with primal possibilities of ideas.
The character of significance and meaning clings to sub-
jective perception. It says more than the mere image of
the object, though naturally only to him for whom the
500
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
subjective factor has some meaning. To another, a re-
produced subjective impression seems to suffer from the
defect of possessing insufficient similarity with the object ;
it seems, therefore, to have failed in its purpose. Sub-
jective sensation apprehends the background of the
physical world rather than its surface. The decisive
thing is not the reality of the object, but the reality of
the subjective factor, t.e. the primordial images, which in
their totality represent a psychic mirror-world. It is a
mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing
the present contents of consciousness not in their known
and customary form but in a certain sense sub specie
aetemitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness
might see them. Such a consciousness would see the
becoming and the passing of things beside their present
and momentary existence, and not only that, but at the
same time it would also see that Other, which was before
their becoming and will be after their passing hence. To
this consciousness the present moment is improbable.
This is, of course, only a simile, of which, however, I had
need to give some sort of illustration of the peculiar nature
of introverted sensation. Introverted sensation conveys
an image whose effect is not so much to reproduce the
object as to throw over it a wrapping whose lustre is
derived from age-old subjective experience and the still un-
born future event. Thus, mere sense impression develops
into the depth of the meaningful, while extraverted sensa-
tion seizes only the momentary and manifest existence of
things.
7. The Introverted Sensation Type
The priority of introverted sensation produces a definite
type, which is characterized by certain peculiarities. It
is an irrational type, inasmuch as its selection among
occurrences is not primarily rational, but is guided rather
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 501
by what just happens. Whereas, the extraverted sensa.
tion-type is determined by the intensity of the objective
influence, the introverted type is orientated by the in-
tensity of the subjective sensation-constituent released by
the objective stimulus. Obviously, therefore, no sort of
proportional relation exists between object and sensation,
but something that is apparently quite irregular and
arbitrary. Judging from without, therefore, it is practically
impossible to foretell what will make an impression and
what will not. If there were present a capacity and
readiness for expression in any way commensurate with
the strength of sensation, the irrationality of this type
would be extremely evident This is the case, for
instance, when the individual is a creative artist. But,
since this is the exception, it usually happens that the
characteristic introverted difficulty of expression also
conceals his irrationality. On the contrary, he may
actually stand out by the very calmness and passivity
of his demeanour, or by his rational self-control. This
peculiarity, which often leads the superficial judgment
astray, is really due to his unrelatedness to objects.
Normally the object is not consciously depreciated in
the least, but its stimulus is removed from it, because it
is immediately replaced by a subjective reaction, which
is no longer related to the reality of the object This,
of course, has the same effect as a depreciation of the
object Such a type can easily make one question why
one should exis^ at all ; or why objects in general should
have any right to existence, since everything eMw itial
happens without the object. This doubt may be justified
in extreme cases, though not in the normal, since the
objective stimulus is indispensable to his sensation, only
it produces something different from what was to be
surmised from the external state of affairs. Considered
from without, it looks as though the effect of the object
503 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
did not obtrude itself upon the subject This impression
is so far correct inasmuch as a subjective content does,
in fact, intervene from the unconscious, thus snatching
away the effect of the object This intervention may
be so abrupt that the individual appears to shield himself
directly from any possible influence of the object In
any aggravated or well-marked case, such a protective
guard is also actually present Even with only a slight
reinforcement of the unconscious, the subjective constituent
of sensation becomes so alive that it almost completely
obscures the objective influence. The results of this are,
on the one hand, a feeling of complete depreciation on
the part of the object, and, on the other, an illusory con-
ception of reality on the part of the subject, which in
morbid cases may even reach the point of a complete
inability to discriminate between the real object and the
subjective perception. Although so vital a distinction
vanishes completely only in a practically psychotic state,
yet long before that point is reached subjective perception
may influence thought, feeling, and action to an extreme
degree, in spite of the fact that the object is clearly seen
in its fullest reality. Whenever the objective influence
does succeed in forcing its way into the subject — as the
result of particular circumstances of special intensity, or
because of a more perfect analogy with the unconscious
image — even the normal example of this type is induced
to act in accordance with his unconscious model Such
action has an illusory quality in relation to objective
reality, and therefore has a very odd and strange character.
It instantly reveals the anti-real subjectivity of the type.
But, where the influence of the object does not entirely
succeed, it encounters a benevolent neutrality, disclos-
ing little sympathy, yet constantly striving to reassure
and adjust The too-low is raised a little, the too-high
is made a little lower; the enthusiastic is damped, the
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 5°3
extravagant restrained; and the unusual brought within
the ‘ correct * formula : all this in order to keep the in-
fluence of the object within the necessary bounds. Thus,
this type becomes an affliction to his circle, just in so far as
his entire harmlessness is no longer above suspicion. But,
if the latter should be the case, the individual readily
becomes a victim to the aggressiveness and ambitions of
others. Such men allow themselves to be abused, for
which they usually take vengeance at the most unsuitable
occasions with redoubled stubbornness and resistance.
When there exists no capacity for artistic expression,
all impressions sink into the inner depths, whence they
hold consciousness under a spell, removing any possibility
it might have had of mastering the fascinating impression
by means of conscious expression. Relatively speaking,
this type has only archaic possibilities of expression for
the disposal of his impressions ; thought and feeling are
relatively unconscious, and, in so far as they have a certain
consciousness, they only serve in the necessary, banal,
every-day expressions. Hence as conscious functions,
they are wholly unfitted to give any adequate rendering
of the subjective perceptions. This type, therefore, is
uncommonly inaccessible to an objective understanding;
and he fares no better in the understanding of himself.
Above all, his development estranges him from the
reality of the object, handing him over to his subjective
perceptions, which orientate his consciousness in accordance
with an archaic reality, although his deficiency in com-
parative judgment keeps him wholly unaware of this fact
Actually he moves in a mythological world, where men
animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear
partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent
demons. That thus they appear to him never enters his
mind, although their effect upon his judgments and acts
can bear no other interpretation. He judges and act$ as
5®4
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
though he had such powers to deal with ; but this begins
to strike him only when he discovers that his sensations
are totally different from reality. If his tendency is to
reason objectively, he will sense this difference as morbid ;
but if, on the other hand, he remains faithful to his
irrationality, and is prepared to grant his sensation reality
value, the objective world will appear a mere make-belief
and a comedy. Only in extreme cases, however, is this
dilemma reached. As a rule, the individual acquiesces in
his isolation and in the banality of the reality, which,
however, he unconsciously treats archaically.
His unconscious i$ distinguished chiefly by the re-
pression of intuition, which thereby acquires an extraverted
and archaic character. Whereas true extraverted intuition
has a characteristic resourcefulness, and a ‘ good nose ’ for
eveiy possibility in objective reality, this archaic, extra-
verted intuition has an amazing flair for every ambiguous,
gloomy, dirty, and dangerous possibility in the background
of reality. In the presence of this intuition the real and
conscious intention of the object has no significance; it
will peer behind every possible archaic antecedent of such
an intention. It possesses, therefore, something dangerous,
something actually undermining, which often stands in
most vivid contrast to the gentle benevolence of conscious-
ness. So long as the individual is not too aloof from
the object, the unconscious intuition effects a wholesome
compensation to the rather fantastic and over credulous
attitude of consciousness. But as soon as the unconscious
becomes antagonistic to consciousness, such intuitions come
to the surface and expand their nefarious influence : they
force themselves compellingly upon the individual, releasing
compulsive ideas about objects of the most perverse kind.
The neurosis arising from this sequence of events is usually
a compulsion neurosis, in which the hysterical characters
recede and are obscured by symptoms of exhaustion.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
505
8. Intuition
Intuition, in the introverted attitude, is directed upon
the inner object, a term we might justly apply to the
elements of the unconscious. For the relation of inner
objects to consciousness is entirely analogous to that of
outer objects, although theirs is a psychological and not a
physical reality. Inner objects appear to the intuitive
perception as subjective images of things, which, though
not met with in external experience, really determine the
contents of the unconscious, i.e. the collective unconscious
in the last resort. Naturally, in their per se character, these
contents are not accessible to experience, a quality which
they have in common with the outer object For just as
outer objects correspond only relatively with our perceptions
of them, so the phenomenal forms of the inner object are
also relative ; products of their (to us) inaccessible essence
and of the peculiar nature of the intuitive function. Like
sensation, intuition also has its subjective factor, which is
suppressed to the farthest limit in the extraverted intuition,
but which becomes the decisive factor in the intuition of
the introvert Although this intuition may receive its
impetus from outer objects, it is never arrested by the
external possibilities, but stays with that factor which the
outer object releases within.
Whereas introverted sensation is mainly confined to
the perception of particular innervation phenomena by
way of the unconscious, and does not go beyond them,
intuition represses this side of the subjective factor and
perceives the image which has really occasioned the
innervation. Supposing, for instance, a man is overtaken
by a psychogenic attack of giddiness. Sensation is
arrested by the peculiar character of this innervation-
disturbance, perceiving all its qualities, its intensity, its
transient course, the nature of its origin and disappearance
<jo6 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
in their every detail, without raising the smallest inquiry
concerning the nature of the thing which produced the
disturbance, or advancing anything as to its content.
Intuition, on the other hand, receives from the sensation
only the impetus to immediate activity; it peers behind
the scenes, quickly perceiving the inner image that gave
rise to the specific phenomenon, i.e. the attack of vertigo,
in the present case. It sees the image of a tottering man
pierced through the heart by an arrow. This image
fascinates the intuitive activity ; it is arrested by it, and
seeks to explore every detail of it. It holds fast to the
vision, observing with the liveliest interest how the picture
changes, unfolds further, and finally fades. In this way
introverted intuition perceives all the background processes
of consciousness with almost the same distinctness as
extraverted sensation senses outer objects. For intuition,
therefore, the unconscious images attain to the dignity of
things or objects. But, because intuition excludes the
co-operation of sensation, it obtains either no knowledge
at all or at the best a very inadequate awareness of the
innervation-disturbances or of the physical effects produced
by the unconscious images. Accordingly, the images
appear as though detached from the subject, as though
existing in themselves without relation to the person.
Consequently, in the above-mentioned example, the intro-
verted intuitive, when affected by the giddiness, would not
imagine that the perceived image might also in some way
refer to himselt Naturally, to one who is rationally
orientated, such a thing seems almost unthinkable, but it
is none the less a fact, and I have often experienced it in
my dealings with this type.
The remarkable indifference of the extraverted intuitive
in respect to outer objects is shared by the introverted
intuitive in relation to the inner objects. Just as the
extraverted intuitive is continually scenting out new
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 50 )
possibilities, which he pursues with an equal unconcern
both for his own welfare and for that of others, pressing on
quite heedless of human considerations, tearing down what
has only just been established in his everlasting search for
change, so the introverted intuitive moves from image to
image, chasing after every possibility in the teeming womb
of the unconscious, without establishing any connection
between the phenomenon and himself. Just as the world
can never become a moral problem for the man who merely
senses it, so the world of images is never a moral problem
to the intuitive. To the one just as much as to the other,
it is an (esthetic problem , a question of perception, a ‘sensa-
tion*. In this way, the consciousness of his own bodily
existence fades from the introverted intuitive’s view, as
does its effect upon others. The extraverted standpoint
would say of him : ‘ Reality has no existence for him ; he
gives himself up to fruitless phantasies \ A perception of
the unconscious images, produced in such inexhaustible
abundance by the creative energy of life, is of course
fruitless from the standpoint of immediate utility. But,
since these images represent possible ways of viewing life,
which in given circumstances have the power to provide a
new energic potential, this function, which to the outer
world is the strangest of all, is as indispensable to the total
psychic economy as is the corresponding human type to*
the psychic life of a people. Had this type not existed,
there would have been no prophets in Israel.
Introverted intuition apprehends the images which
arise from the a priori, i.e. the inherited foundations of the
unconscious mind. These archetypes, whose innermost
nature is inaccessible to experience, represent the pre-
cipitate of psychic functioning of the whole ancestral line,
t.e. the heaped-up, or pooled, experiences of organic exist-
ence in general, a million times repeated, and condensed
into types. Hence, in these archetypes all experiences are
508 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
represented which since primeval time have happened on
this planet. Their archetypal distinctness is the more
marked, the more frequently and intensely they have been
experienced. The archetype would be — to borrow from
Kant — the noumenon of the image which intuition per-
ceives and, in perceiving, creates.
Since the unconscious is not just something that lies
there, like a psychic caput mortuum, but is something that
coexists and experiences inner transformations which are
inherently related to general events, introverted intuition,
through its perception of inner processes, gives certain data
which may possess supreme importance for the compre-
hension of general occurrences: it can even foresee new
possibilities in more or less clear outline, as well as the
event which later actually transpires. Its prophetic pre-
vision is to be explained from its relation to the arche-
types which represent the law-determined course of all
experienceable things.
9. The Introverted Intuitive Type
The peculiar nature of introverted intuition, when given
the priority, also produces a peculiar type of man, viz. the
mystical dreamer and seer on the one hand, or the fantasti-
*cal crank and artist on the other. The latter might be
regarded as the normal case, since there is a general
tendency of this type to confine himself to the perceptive
character of intuition. As a rule, the intuitive stops at
perception; perception is his principal problem, and — in
the case of a productive artist — the shaping of perception.
But the crank contents himself with the intuition by which
he himself is shaped and determined. Intensification of
intuition naturally often results in an extraordinary aloof-
ness of the individual from tangible reality ; he may even
become a complete enigma to his own immediate circle.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
5 ° 9
If an artist, he reveals extraordinary, remote things in his
art, which in iridescent profusion embrace both the signifi-
cant and the banal, the lovely and the grotesque, the
whimsical and the sublime. If not an artist, he is
frequently an unappreciated genius, a great man ‘gone
wrong *, a sort of wise simpleton, a figure for ‘ psychological ’
novels.
Although it is not altogether in the line of the intro-
verted intuitive type to make of perception a moral
problem, since a certain reinforcement of the rational
functions is required for this, yet even a relatively slight
differentiation of judgment would suffice to transfer in-
tuitive perception from the purely aesthetic into the moral
sphere. A variety of this type is thus produced which
differs essentially from its aesthetic form, although none
the less characteristic of the introverted intuitive. The
moral problem comes into being when the intuitive tries to
relate himself to his vision, when he is no longer satisfied
with mere perception and its aesthetic shaping and
estimation, but confronts the question : What does this
mean for me and for the world? What emerges from
this vision in the way of a duty or task, either for me or
for the world ? The pure intuitive who represses judgment
or possesses it only under the spell of perception never
meets this question fundamentally, since his only problem
is the How of perception. He, therefore, finds the moral
problem unintelligible, even absurd, and as far as possible
forbids his thoughts to dwell upon the disconcerting
vision. It is different with the morally orientated intuitive.
He concerns himself with the meaning of his vision ; he
troubles less about its further aesthetic possibilities than
about the possible moral effects which emerge from its
intrinsic significance. His judgment allows him to discern,
though often only darkly, that he, as a man and as a
totality, is in some way inter-related with his vision, that
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
5io
it is something which cannot just be perceived but which
also would fain become the life of the subject. Through
this realization he feels bound to transform his vision into
his own life. But, since he tends to rely exclusively upon
his vision, his moral effort becomes one-sided ; he makes
himself and his life symbolic, adapted, it is true, to the
inner and eternal meaning of events, but unadapted to the
actual present-day reality. Therewith he also deprives
himself of any influence upon it, because he remains un-
intelligible. His language is not that which is commonly
spoken — it becomes too subjective. His argument lacks
convincing reason. He can only confess or pronounce
His is the ‘ voice of one crying in the wilderness \
The introverted intuitive’s chief repression falls upon
the sensation of the object. His unconscious is character-
ized by this fact. For we find in his unconscious a com-
pensatory extraverted sensation function of an archaic
character. The unconscious personality may, therefore,
best be described as an extraverted sensation-type of a
rather low and primitive order. Impulsiveness and un-
restraint are the characters of this sensation, combined
with an extraordinary dependence upon the sense im-
pression. This latter quality is a compensation to the
thin upper air of the conscious attitude, giving it a certain
weight, so that complete ‘ sublimation ’ is prevented. But
if, through a forced exaggeration of the conscious attitude,
a complete subordination to the inner perception should
develop, the unconscious becomes an opposition, giving
rise to compulsive sensations whose excessive dependence
upon the object is in frank conflict with the conscious
attitude. The form of neurosis is a compulsion-neurosis,
exhibiting symptoms that are partly hypochondriacal
manifestations, partly hypersensibility of the sense organs
and partly compulsive ties to definite persons or ocher
objects.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES 511
10. Recapitulation of Introverted Irrational Types
The two types just depicted are almost inaccessible to
external judgment Because they are introverted and
have in consequence a somewhat meagre capacity or
willingness for expression, they offer but a frail handle
for a telling criticism. Since their main activity is directed
within, nothing is outwardly visible but reserve, secretive-
ness, lack of sympathy, or uncertainty, and an apparently
groundless perplexity. When anything does come to the
surface, it usually consists in indirect manifestations of
inferior and relatively unconscious functions. Manifesta-
tions of such a nature naturally excite a certain environ-
mental prejudice against these types. Accordingly they
are mostly underestimated, or at least misunderstood.
To the same degree as they fail to understand themselves
— because they very largely lack judgment — they are also
powerless to understand why they are so constantly under-
valued by public opinion. They cannot see that their
outward-going expression is, as a matter of fact, also of
an inferior character. Their vision is enchanted by the
abundance of subjective events. What happens there is
■ so captivating, and of such inexhaustible attraction, that
they do not appreciate the fact that their habitual com-
munications to their circle express very little of that real
experience in which they themselves are, as it were, caught
up. The fragmentary and, as a rule, quite episodic
character of their communications make too great a
demand upon the understanding and good will of their
circle; furthermore, their mode of expression lacks that
flowing warmth to the object which alone can have con-
vincing force. On the contrary, these types show very
often a brusque, repelling demeanour towards the outer
world, although of this they are quite unaware, and have
not the least intention of showing it. We shall form a
51 * GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
fairer judgment of such men and grant them a greater
indulgence, when we begin to realize how hard it is to
translate into intelligible language what is perceived
within. Yet this indulgence must not be so liberal as to
exempt them altogether from the necessity of such ex-
pression. This could be only detrimental for such types.
Fate itself prepares for them, perhaps even more than for
other men, overwhelming external difficulties, which have
a very sobering effect upon the intoxication of the inner
vision. But frequently only an intense personal need can
wring from them a human expression.
From an extraverted and rationalistic standpoint, such
types are indeed the most fruitless of men. But, viewed
from a higher standpoint, such men are living evidence of
the fact that this rich and varied world with its overflowing
and intoxicating life is not purely external, but also exists
within. These types are admittedly onesided demonstra-
tions of Nature, but they are an educational experience
for the man who refuses to be blinded by the intellectual
mode of the day. In their own way, men with such an
attitude are educators and promoters of culture. Their
life teaches more than their words. From their lives, and
not the least from what is just their greatest fault, viz.
their incommunicability, we may understand one of the
greatest errors of our civilization, that is, the superstitious
belief in statement and presentation, the immoderate
overprizing of instruction by means of word and method.
A child certainly allows himself to be impressed by the
grand talk of its parents. But is it really imagined that
the child is thereby educated ? Actually it is the parents’
lives that educate the child — what they add thereto by
word and gesture at best serves only to confuse him. The
same holds good for the teacher. But we have such a
belief in method that, if only the method be good, the
practice of it seems to hallow the teacher. An inferior
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
513
man is never a good teacher. But he can conceal his
injurious inferiority, which secretly poisons the pupil,
behind an excellent method or an equally brilliant intel-
lectual capacity. Naturally the pupil of riper years desires
nothing better than the knowledge of useful methods,
because he is already defeated by the general attitude,
which believes in the victorious method. He has already
learnt that the emptiest head, correctly echoing a method,
is the best pupil. His whole environment not only urges
but exemplifies the doctrine that all success and happiness
are external, and that only the right method is needed to
attain the haven of one’s desires. Or is the life of his
religious instructor likely to demonstrate that happiness
which radiates from the treasure of the inner vision ? The
irrational introverted types are certainly no instructors of
a more complete humanity. They lack reason and the
ethics of reason, but their lives teach the other possibility,
in which our civilization is so deplorably wanting.
11. The Principal and Auxiliary Functions
In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire to give
my readers the impression that such pure types occur
at all frequently in actual practice. They are, as it were,
only Galtonesque family-portraits, which sum up in a
cumulative image the common and therefore typical
characters, stressing these disproportionately, while the
individual features are just as disproportionately effaced.
Accurate investigation of the individual case consistently
reveals the fact that, in conjunction with the most differ-
entiated function, another function of secondary importance,
and therefore of inferior differentiation in consciousness,
is constantly present, and is a relatively determining
factor.
5*4
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
For the sake of clarity let us again recapitulate : The
products of all the functions can be conscious, but we
speak of the consciousness of a function only when not
merely its application is at the disposal of the will, but
when at the same time its principle is decisive for the
orientation of consciousness. The latter event is true
when, for instance, thinking is not a mere esprit de
1’escalier, or rumination, but when its decisions possess an
absolute validity, so that the logical conclusion in a given
case holds good, whether as motive or as guarantee of
practical action, without the backing of any further
evidence. This absolute sovereignty always belongs,
empirically, to one function alone, and can belong only
to one function, since the equally independent intervention
of another function would necessarily yield a different
orientation, which would at least partially contradict the
first. But, since it is a vital condition for the conscious
adaptation-process that constantly clear and unambiguous
aims should be in evidence, the presence of a second
function of equivalent power is naturally forbidden.
This other function, therefore, can have only a secondary
importance, a fact which is also established empirically.
Its secondary importance consists in the fact that, in a
given case, it is not valid in its own right, as is the
primary function, as an absolutely reliable and decisive
factor, but comes into play more as an auxiliary or
complementary function. Naturally only those functions
can appear as auxiliary whose nature is not opposed to
the leading function. For instance, feeling can never act
as the second function by the side of thinking, because
its nature stands in too strong a contrast to thinking.
Thinking, if it is to be real thinking and true to its own
principle, must scrupulously exclude feeling. This, of
course, does not exclude the fact that individuals certainly
exist in whom thinking and feeling stand upon the same
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
515
level, whereby both have equal motive power in con-
sciousness. But, in such a case, there is also no question
of a differentiated type, but merely of a relatively un-
developed thinking and feeling. Uniform consciousness
and unconsciousness of functions is, therefore, a distinguish-
ing mark of a primitive mentality.
Experience shows that the secondary function is
always one whose nature is different from, though not
antagonistic to, the leading function: thus, for example,
thinking, as primary function, can readily pair with
intuition as auxiliary, or indeed equally well with sensa-
tion, but, as already observed, never with feeling. Neither
intuition nor sensation are antagonistic to thinking, i.e.
they have not to be unconditionally excluded, since
they are not, like feeling, of similar nature, though of
opposite purpose, to thinking — for as a judging function
feeling successfully competes with thinking — but .are
functions of perception, affording welcome assistance to
thought As soon as they reached the same level of
differentiation as thinking, they would cause a change
of attitude, which would contradict the tendency of think-
ing. For they would convert the judging attitude into
a perceiving one; whereupon the principle of rationality
indispensable to thought would be suppressed in favour
of the irrationality of mere perception. Hence the
auxiliary function is possible and useful only in so far
as it serves the leading function, without making any claim
to the autonomy of its own principle.
For all the types appearing in practice, the principle
bolds good that besides the conscious main function
there is also a relatively' unconscious, auxiliary function
which is in every respect different from the nature of the
main function. From these combinations well-known
pictures arise, the practical intellect for instance paired
with sensation, the speculative intellect breaking through
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
516
with intuition, the artistic intuition which selects and
presents its images by means of feeling judgment, the
philosophical intuition which, in league with a vigorous
intellect, translates its vision into the sphere of compre-
hensible thought, and so forth.
A grouping of the unconscious functions also takes
place in accordance with the relationship of the conscious
functions. Thus, for instance, an unconscious intuitive-
feeling attitude may correspond with a conscious practical
intellect, whereby the function of feeling suffers a relatively
stronger inhibition than intuition. This peculiarity, how-
ever, is of interest only for one who is concerned with the
practical psychological treatment of such cases. But for
such a man it is important to know about it. For I have
frequently observed the way in which a physician, in the
case for instance of an exclusively intellectual subject,
will, do his utmost to develop the feeling function directly
out of the unconscious. This attempt must always come
to grief, since it involves too great a violation of the
conscious standpoint Should such a violation succeed,
there ensues a really compulsive dependence of the
patient upon the physician, a ‘transference’ which can be
a m putated only by brutality, because such a violation
»bs the patient of a standpoint — his physician becomes
his standpoint But the approach to the unconscious and
to the most repressed function is disclosed, as it were, of
itself, and with more adequate protection of the conscious
standpoint, when the way of development is via the
secondary function — thus in the case of a rational type
by way of the irrational function. For this lends the
conscious standpoint such a range and prospect over
what is possible and imminent that consciousness gains
an adequate protection against the destructive effect of
the unconscious. Conversely, an irrational type demands
a stronger development of the rational auxiliary function
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TYPES
517
represented in consciousness, in order to be sufficiently
prepared to receive the impact of the unconscious.
The unconscious functions are in an archaic, animal
state. Their symbolical appearances in dreams and
phantasies usually represent the battle or coming encounter
of two animals or monsters.
CHAPTER XI
DEFINITIONS
IT may perhaps seem superfluous that I should add to my
text a chapter dealing solely with definitions. But wide
experience warns me that, in psychological work especially,
one cannot proceed too cautiously when dealing with
concepts and expressions; for nowhere do such lament-
able conceptual divergences occur, as in the province of
psychology, creating only too frequently the most obstinate
misunderstandings. This drawback is due not only to the
fact that the science of psychology is still in its infancy ;
but there is also the difficulty that the material of experi-
ence, the object of scientific consideration, cannot be
displayed in concrete form, as it were, to the eyes of the
reader. The psychological investigator is always finding
himself obliged to make use of extensive, and in a sense
indirect, description for the presentation of the reality he
has observed. Only in so far as elementary facts are
accessible to number and measure can there be any
question of a direct presentation. But how much of the
actual psychology of man can be witnessed and observed
as mensurable facts? Such facts do exist, in the realm
of psychology; indeed my Association Studies have, I
think, demonstrated 1 that highly complicated psycho-
logical phenomena are none the less accessible to methods
of measure. But anyone who has probed more deeply
into the nature of psychology, demanding something more
of it than science in the wretchedly prescribed limits of a
i Jung, Studies in Word Association : transl. by M. D. Eder (London ;
Heinemann).
DEFINITIONS
519
natural science method is able to yield, will also have
realized that an experimental method will never succeed
in doing justice to the nature of the human soul, nor will it
ever trace even an approximately faithful picture of the
complicated psychic phenomena.
But, when we leave the realm of mensurable facts, we
are dependent upon concepts, which have now to assume
the office of measure and number. That precision which
exact measurements lend to the observed fact can be
replaced only by the precision of the concept. Unfortunately,
however, as is only too familiar to every investigator and
worker in this field, current psychological concepts are
involved in such uncertainty and ambiguity that mutual
understanding is almost impossible. One has only to
take the concept ‘feeling*, for instance, and attempt to
visualize everything that this idea contains, to get some
sort of notion of the variability and ambiguity of psycho-
logical concepts. Nevertheless this concept does express
something characteristic that is certainly inaccessible to
rule and number and yet conceivably existing. One
cannot simply resign oneself, as Wundt does in his physio-
logical psychology, to a mere denial of the validity of such
facts as essential basic phenomena, whereby they are either
replaced by elementary facts or again resolved into such.
For by so doing a primary element of psychology is
entirely lost
In order to escape the drawback this overvaluation of
the natural science method involves, one is obliged to have
recourse to well-defined concepts. But, before we could
arrive at such concepts, the collaboration of many would be
needed ; i.e. the consensus gentium , so to speak, would have
to be invoked. But since .this is not within the immediate
range of possibility, the individual pioneer must* at least
strive to give his concepts some fixity and precision ; and
this is best achieved by so elucidating the meaning of the
DEFINITIONS
520
concepts he employs as to put everyone in a position to
see what he means by them.
It is in response to this need that I now propose to
discuss my principal psychological concepts in alpha-
betical order, and I must take this opportunity of request-
ing the reader to refer to these interpretations in every
case of doubt It must, of course, be understood that
with these interpretations and definitions I merely wish
to establish the sense in which I myself employ the
concepts; far be it from me to affirm that such an
application is the only possible one under all circum-
stances, or even the absolutely correct interpretation.
1. Abstraction, as the word already implies, is the
drawing out or isolation of a content ( e.g . a meaning or
general character, etc.) from a connection, containing other
elements, whose combination as a totality is something
unique or individual, and therefore inaccessible to com-
parison. Singularity, uniqueness, and incomparability are
obstacles to cognition, hence to the cognitive tendency
the remaining elements, though felt to be essentially bound
up with the content, must appear irrelevant.
Abstraction, therefore, is that form of mental activity
which releases the essential content or fact from its con-
nection with irrelevant elements ; it distinguishes it from
them, or, in other words, differentiates it. (v. Differentiation j.
In its wider sense, everything is abstract that is separated
from its connection with non-appertaining elements.
Abstraction is an activity belonging to psychological
functions in general. There is a thinking which abstracts,
just as there is abstracting feeling , sensation, and intuition .
(v. these concepts). Abstracting - thinking brings into
relief a content that is distinguished from other irrelevant
elements by its intellectual, logical qualities. Abstracting-
feeling does the same with a content characterized by
DEFINITIONS
521
feeling; similarly with sensation and intuition. Hence,
not only are there abstract thoughts but also abstract
feelings, which latter are defined by Sully as intellectual,
aesthetic, and moral 1 . Nahlowsky adds the religious
feeling to these. Abstract feelings would, in my view, corre-
spond with the ‘ higher * or ‘ideal* feelings of Nahlowsky 2 ,
I put abstract feelings on the same line as abstract
thoughts. Abstract sensation would be aesthetic as dis-
tinguished from sensual sensation ( v . Sensation), and
abstract intuition would be symbolical as opposed to
phantastical intuition, (v. Phantasy, and Intuition).
In this work, the concept of abstraction is linked up
with the idea of the psycho-energic process involved in it.
When I assume an abstracting attitude towards an object,
I do not let the object affect me in its totality, but I
distinguish a portion of it from its connections, at the
same time excluding the irrelevant parts. My purpose is
to rid myself of the object as a single and unique whole,
and to extract only a portion of it. Awareness of the
whole undoubtedly takes place, but I do not plunge myself
into this awareness ; my interest does not flow out into
the totality, but withdraws itself from the object as a
whole, bringing the abstracted portion into myself, i.e .
into my conceptual world, which is already prepared or
constellated for the purpose of abstracting a part of the
object. (It is only by virtue of a subjective constellation
of concepts that I possess the power of abstracting from
the object). ‘ Interest ’ I conceive as that energy = libido
(v. Libido), which I bestow upon the object as value, or
which the object draws from me, even maybe against my
will or unknown to myself. I visualize the abstracting
process, therefore, as a withdrawal of libido from the
object, or as a backflow of value from the object to a
1 Sully, The Human Mind , vol. ii, ch. 16.
a Nahlowsky, Das GefUhlsleben, p. 48.
DEFINITIONS
522
subjective, abstract content Thus, for me, abstraction
has the meaning of an energic depreciation of the object.
In other words, abstraction can be expressed as an intro*
verting libido-movement.
I call an attitude (v. Attitude) abstracting when it is
both introverting and at the same time assimilates to
already prepared abstract contents in the subject a certain
essential portion of the object The more abstract a
content, the more unrepresentable it is, I adhere to Kant’s
view, which maintains that a concept is the more abstract,
“ the more it excludes the differences of things ” l , in the
sense that abstraction at its highest level is absolutely
removed from the object, thereby attaining the extreme
limit of unrepresentability. It is this abstraction which
I term the idea (». Idea). Conversely, an abstraction
that still possesses representability or obviousness is a
concrete (». Concretism) concept.
2. Affect. — By the term affect we understand a state
of feeling characterized by a perceptible bodily innervation
on the one hand and a peculiar disturbance of the idea-
tional process on the other 1 . I use emotion as synony-
mous with affect I distinguish — in contrast to Bleuler
(». Affectivity)— -feeling from affect, in spite of the fact
that no definite demarcation exists, since every feeling,
after attaining a certain strength, releases physical innerva-
tions, thus becoming an affect. On practical grounds,
however, it is advisable to discriminate affect from feeling,
since feeling can be a disposable function, whereas affect
is usually not so. Similarly, affect is clearly distinguished
from feeling by quite perceptible physical, innervations,
while feeling for the most part lacks them, or their intensity
t Kant. Logic, $ 6.
* Cf. Wundt, Grundseichnungsn ier physiolog. Psychologic, jte
Aufl. ID, pp. 209 fi-
DEFINITIONS
5*3
is so slight that they can only be demonstrated by the
finest instruments, as for example the psycho-galvanic
phenomenon 1 . Affect becomes cumulative through the
sensation of the physical innervations released by it
This perception gave rise to the James-Lang theory of
affect, which would make bodily innervations wholly
responsible for affects. As opposed to this extreme view,
I regard affect as a psychic feeling-state on the one hand,
and as a physiological innervation-state on the other ;
each of which has a cumulative, reciprocal effect upon
the other, i.e. a component of sensation is joined to the
reinforced feeling, through which the affect is approxi-
mated more to sensation ( v . Sensation), and differentiated
essentially from the state of feeling. Pronounced affects,
i.e. affects accompanied by violent physical innervation,
I do not assign to the province of feeling but to the realm
of the sensation function (v. Function).
3. Affectivity is a concept coined by Bleuler. Affec-
tivity designates and embraces “not only the affects
proper, but also the slight feelings or feeling-tones of
pain and pleasure.” 2 * * * * * On the one hand, Bleuler distin-
guishes from affectivity all sensations and other bodily
perceptions, and, on the other, such feelings as may be
regarded as inner perception-processes (e.g. the ‘feeling’
of certainty or probability) 8 or indistinct thoughts or
discernments (pp. 13 ff.).
1 F6r6, Note sur des modifications de la resistance ilectrique, etc.
(Comptes-Rendus de la Sociiti de Biologic , 1888, pp. 217 ff.)
Veraguth, Das Psychogalvanische Reflexphdmomen (Monatsschr. f.
Psych . u. Neurol ., XXI, p. 387)
Jung, On Psychophysical Relations, etc. (Journal of Abnormal
Psychology, i, 247)
Binswanger, On Psychogalvanic Phenomenon in Assoc. Experi-
ments (Jung, Studies in Word Association, p. 446)
* Bleuler, Affektivitdt, Suggestibitdt, Paranoia (1906), p. 6.
% Which in reality are intuitions.
5*4
DEFINITIONS
4 Anima — v. Soul.
5. Apperception is a psychic process by which a new
content is articulated to similar already-existing contents
in such a way as to be understood, apprehended, or clear \
We discriminate active from passive apperception; the
former is a process by which the subject of himself, from
his own motives, consciously and attentively apprehends
a new content and assimilates it to another content stand-
ing in readiness; the latter is a process in which a new
content from without (through the senses) or from within
(from the unconscious) presses through into consciousness,
and, to a certain extent, compels attention and apprehen-
sion upon itself. In the former case, the accent of activity
lies with the ego ; in the latter, with the obtruding new
content
6. Archaism : With this term, I designate the ancient
character of psychic contents and functions. By this I do
not mean archaistic, i.e. imitated antiquity, as exhibited
for instance in the later Roman sculpture or the nineteenth
century ‘ Gothic but qualities which have the character of
survival. All those psychological traits can be so described
which essentially correspond with the qualities of primitive
mentality. It is clear that archaism primarily clings to
the phantasies of the unconscious, i.e. to such products
of unconscious phantasy-activity as reach consciousness.
The quality of the image is archaic when it possesses
unmistakable mythological parallels *. The analogy-
associations of unconscious phantasy are archaic, as is
their symbolism (v. Symbol). The relation of identity
with the object (v. Identity), or “ participation mystique ”
(q.v.) is archaic. Concretism of thought and feeling is
1 Cf. Wundt, Gnindxige der physiolog. Psychologic, i, 322.
* Cf. Jung, Psychology of ihs Unconscious.
DEFINITIONS
5*5
archaic. Compulsion and inability for self-control (being
carried away) are also archaic. That condition in which
the psychological functions are fused or merged one into
the other (v. Differentiation) is archaic — the fusion, for
instance, of thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, or
feeling with intuition. Furthermore, the coalescence of
parts of a function ( c audition colorize ’), ambitendency and
ambivalency (Bleuler), i.e. the state of fusion with its
counterpart, e.g. positive with negative feeling, is also
archaic.
7. Assimilation is the absorption or joining up of a
new conscious content to already prepared subjective
material x , whereby the similarity of the new content with
the waiting subjective material is specially emphasized,
even to the prejudice of the independent quality of the
new content 2 . Fundamentally, assimilation is a process
of apperception (v. Apperception), which, however, is dis-
tinguished from pure apperception by this element of
adjustment to the subjective material. It is in this sense
that Wundt says 8 : "This method of acquisition (viz.
assimilation) stands out most obviously in representations
where the assimilating elements arise through reproduc-
tion and the assimilated material through a direct sense-
impression. For then the elements of memory-images are
transferred, as it were, into the outer object, which is
especially the case when the object and the reproduced
elements differ so considerably from each other that the
completed sense-perception appears as an illusion, de-
ceiving us as to the actual nature of things ”
I employ assimilation in a somewhat broader sense,
namely as the adjustment of object to subject in general,
and with it I contrast dissimilation , which represents the
1 Wundt, Logic, i. 20.
* Cf. Lipps, Lsitfaden der Psychologic , 2te Aufl., p. 104,
® Wundt, GrundxUge d. physiology Psychol . iii, 529.
5 *®
DEFINITIONS
adjustment of subject to object, and a consequent estrange-
ment of the subject from himself in favour of the object,
whether it be an external object or a * psychological 9 or
inner object, as for instance an idea.
8. Attitude (Einstellung) : This concept is a relatively
recent acquisition to psychology. It originated with
Miiller and Schumann \ Whereas Kulpe 8 defines attitude
as a predisposition of the sensory or motor centres to a
definite stimulation or persistent impulse, Ebbinghaus 8
conceives it in a wider sense as a phenomenon of exercise,
introducing an air of the customary into the individual act
which deviates from the customary. Our use of the concept
proceeds, from Ebbinghaus* conception of attitude. For
us, attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or to react
in a certain direction. It is precisely for the psychology
of complex psychic phenomena that the concept is so
important, since it provides an expression for that peculiar
psychological phenomenon wherein we find certain stimuli
exercising a powerful effect on one occasion, while their
effect is either weak or wholly absent on another. To
have a certain attitude means to be ready for something
definite, even though this definite something is unconscious,
since having an attitude is synonymous with an a priori
direction towards a definite thing, whether this be present
in consciousness or not The state of readiness, which I
conceive attitude to be, always consists in the presence of
a certain subjective constellation, a definite combination
of psychic factors or contents, which will either determine
action in this or that definite direction, or will comprehend
an external stimulus in this or that definite way. Active
apperception (q.v.) is impossible without an attitude. An
attitude always has an objective ; this can be either con-
* Pfldgers Archiv, voL 45, 37.
• Grunds. i. Psychol., p. 44. * Ibid., i, 681 fl.
DEFINITIONS
527
scious or unconscious, since in the act of apperceiving a
new content a prepared combination of contents unfail-
ingly emphasizes those qualities or motives which appear
to belong to the subjective content Hence a selection
or judgment takes place which excludes the irrelevant
As to what is, and what is not, relevant is decided by
the already orientated combination or constellation of
contents. Whether the attitude’s objective be conscious
or unconscious is immaterial to its selective effect, since
the choice is already given a priori through the attitude,
and therefore follows automatically. It is useful, however,
to distinguish between conscious and unconscious, since
the presence of two attitudes is extremely frequent, the
one conscious and the other unconscious. Which means
to say that the conscious has a preparedness of contents
different from that of the unconscious. This duality of
attitude is particularly evident in neurosis.
There is a certain kinship between the concept of
attitude and the apperception concept of Wundt, though
with this difference, that the idea of apperception includes
the process of relating the already prepared content to
the new content to be apperceived, while the concept of
attitude relates exclusively to the subjectively prepared
content Apperception is, as it were, the bridge which
connects the already present and prepared content with
the new content, the attitude being, in a sense, the end-
pier or abutment of the bridge upon the one bank, while
the new content represents the abutment upon the other
bank. Attitude signifies an expectation, an expectation
always operates selectively — it gives directioa The
presence of a strongly toned content in the field of con-
sciousness forms (sometimes together with other contents)
a certain constellation which is synonymous with a
definite attitude, because such a conscious content favours
the perception and apperception of everything similar,
5*8
DEFINITIONS
and inhibits the dissimilar. It creates an attitude corre-
sponding with it This automatic phenomenon is an
essential cause of the onesidedness of conscious orientation.
It would lead to a complete loss of equilibrium if there
were no self-regulating, compensatory (q.v.) function in
the psyche to correct the conscious attitude. Thus in this
sense the duality of the attitude is a normal phenomenon,
whidi plays ' a disturbing rdle only when conscious one-
sidedness becomes excessive.
As ordinary attention, the attitude can be either a
relatively unimportant subsidiary phenomenon or a general
principle determining the whole psyche. From disposition,
environmental influence, education, general experience, or
conviction a constellation of contents may be habitually
present, continually moulding a certain attitude which
may operate even down to the most minute details of life.
Every man who has a special sense of the unpleasant side
of life will naturally have an attitude of constant readiness
for the disagreeable. This excessive conscious attitude is
counterbalanced by an unconscious attitude for pleasure
The oppressed individual has a conscious attitude that
always anticipates oppression; he selects this factor in
experience ; everywhere he scents it out ; and in so doing
his unconscious attitude makes for power and superiority.
The total psychology of the individual even in its
various basic characters is orientated by the nature of
his habitual attitude. In spite of the fact that general
psychological laws are operative in every individual, they
cannot be said to be characteristic of the individual, since
the nature of their operation varies completely in accord-
ance with the nature of the general attitude. The general
attitude is always a resultant of all the factors that can
have an essential influence upon the psyche, such as
inborn disposition, education, milieu-influences, experience
of life, insight and convictions gained through differentia-
DEFINITIONS
5*9
tion ( q.v.), collective ideas, etc. Without the absolutely
fundamental importance of attitude, there would be no
question of the existence of an individual psychology.
But the general attitude effects such immense displace-
ments of energy, and so modifies the relations between
individual functions, that resultants are produced which
frequently bring the validity of general psychological
laws into question. In spite of the fact, for instance, that
a certain measure of activity is held to be indispensable
for the sexual function both on physiological and psycho-
logical grounds, individuals certainly exist who, without
injury to themselves, i.e. without pathological phenomena
and without any demonstrable restriction of productive
power, can, to a very great extent, dispense with it ; while,
in other cases, quite insignificant deprivations or disturb-
ances in this region may involve very considerable general
consequences. How potent individual differences can be
is seen perhaps most clearly in questions of likes and
dislikes. Here practically all rules go by the board.
What is there, in the last resort, which has not at one
time given man pleasure, while at another has caused him
pain ? Every instinct, every function can be subordinated
to other instincts and functions and act as a servant. The
ego or power-instinct can make sexuality its serviceable
subject, or sexuality make use of the ego. Thinking
may over-run everything else, or feeling swallow up
thinking and sensation, all in obedience to the attitude.
Au fond, the attitude is an individual phenomenon
and is inaccessible to the scientific method of approach.
In actual experience, however, certain attitude-types can
be discriminated in so far as certain psychic functions can
also be differentiated. When a function habitually pre-
dominates, a typical attitude is thereby produced. In
accordance with the nature of the differentiated function,
constellations of contents take place which create a cor-
s
530
DEFINITIONS
responding attitude. Thus there exist a typical thinking,
a feeling, a sensational, and an intuitive attitude. Besides
these purely psychological attitude-types, whose number
might possibly be increased, there are also social types,
namely, those for whom a collective idea expresses the
brand They are characterized by the various ‘-isms’.
These collective attitudes are, at all events, very important
in certain cases, even outweighing in significance the
purely individual attitude.
9. Collective: All those psychic contents I term col-
lective which are peculiar not to one individual, but to
many, at the same time, l.e. either to a society, a people,
or to mankind in general. Such contents are the
" mystical collective ideas ” (“ representations collectives”)
of the primitive described by Ldvy-Bruhl 1 ; they include
also the general concepts of right, the State, religion, science,
etc., current among civilized man. It is not only concepts
and ways of looking at things, however, which must be
termed collective, but also feelings . L6vy-Bruhl shows
that for the primitives collective ideas also represent
collective feelings. By virtue of this collective feeling
value he also terms the "representations collectives”,
‘mystiques” since these representations are not merely
intellectual but also emotional*. With civilized peoples,
collective feelings are also bound up with certain collective
ideas, such for example as the idea of God, justice, father-
land, etc. The collective character does not merely cling
to individual psychic elements, it also involves whole
functions (< q.v .). Thus, for instance, thinking can have
the character of a wholly collective function, in so far as
it possesses a generally valid quality, when, for example,
it agrees with the laws of logic Feeling can also be a
1 L&ryBruhl, Les fonciions mentales dans les soctetis inJ6rieures k
pp. 27 ff. * Ibid., pp. 2$ ff.
DEFINITIONS
53i
wholly collective function, in so far as it is identical with
the general feeling, when, in other words, it corresponds
with general expectations or with the general moral
consciousness. In' the same way, that sensation or
manner of sensing, and that intuition, are collective which
are peculiar to a large group of men at the same rim.
The antithesis of collective is individual (q.v.).
10. Compensation means a balancing or supplementing.
This concept was actually introduced 1 * * into the psychology
of the neuroses by Adler*. He understands by it a
functional adjustment of the feeling of inferiority by a
compensating psychological system, comparable to the
compensating development of organs in organic in-
feriority*. Thus Adler says: “For these inferior organs
and organ-systems the struggle with the outer world
begins with the release from the maternal organism, a
struggle which must necessarily break out and declare
itself with greater violence than ever occurs in the more
normally developed apparatus. At the same time, how-
ever, the foetal character provides an enhanced possibility
for compensation and overcompensation, increases the
capacity for adaptation to ordinary and extraordinary
resistances, and ensures the formation of new and hig he r
forms and achievements .” 4 * The neurotic’s inferiority-
feeling, which according to Adler corresponds aetiologically
with an organ - inferiority, brings about an “auxiliary
construction” 6 ; in other words, a compensation, which
consists in the setting-up of a fiction to balance the
inferiority. The fiction or “fictitious guiding line” is a
i Allusions to the theory of compensation, originally inspired by
Anton are also to be found in Gross.
* Adler, The Neurotic Constitution : transl. by Gltick and
(London : Kegan Paul & Co.)
* Adler, Studio Ober Minderwertigkeit von Organen. 1907.
* The Neurotic Constitution , p. 7. * Ibid., p. 14.
i 3*.
DEFINITIONS
psychological system which seeks to convert the inferiority
into a superiority. This conception gains significance in
the undeniable existence — for we have all experienced it —
of a compensating function in the sphere of psychological
processes. It corresponds with a similar function in the
physiological sphere, namely, the self-regulation or self-
direction of the living organism.
Whereas Adler restricts his concept of compensation
to a mere balancing of the feeling of inferiority, I conceive
it as a general functional adjustment, an inherent self-
regulation of the psychic apparatus 1 . In this sense, I
regard the activity of the unconscious (q.v.) as a com-
pensation to the onesidedness of the general attitude
produced by the function of consciousness. Psychologists
often compare consciousness to the eye: we speak of a
visual-field and of a focal point of consciousness. The
nature of consciousness is aptly characterized by this
simile : only a few contents can attain the highest grade
of consciousness at the same time, and only a limited
number of contents can be held at the same time in the
conscious field. The activity of the conscious is selective.
Selection demands direction. But direction requires the
exclusion of everything Irrelevant. On occasion, therefore, a
certain onesidedness of the conscious orientation is in-
evitable. The contents that are excluded and inhibited
by the chosen direction sink into the unconscious, where
by "virtue of their effective existence they form a definite
counterweight against the conscious orientation. The
strengthening of this counterposition keeps pace with the
intensification of the conscious onesidedness until finally
a noticeable tension is produced. This tension involves
a certain inhibition of the conscious activity which can
assuredly be broken down by increased conscious effort.
i Jung, Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, 2nd edn., pp,
278 ft. CLondon : Bailliferc)
DEFINITIONS
533
But as time goes on, the tension becomes so acute that
the inhibited unconscious contents begin to break through
into consciousness in the form of dreams and spontaneous
images. The more onesided the conscious attitude, the
more antithetic are the contents arising from the uncon-
scious, so that we may speak of a real opposition between
the conscious and the unconscious ; in which case, com-
pensation appears in the form of a contrasting function
Such a case is extreme. Compensation by the unconscious
is, as a rule, not so much a contrast as a levelling up or
supplementing of the conscious orientation. In dreams,
for instance, the unconscious may supply all those contents
which are constellated by the conscious situation, but
which are inhibited by conscious selection, although a
knowledge of them would be quite indispensable to a
complete adaptation.
In the normal condition the compensation is un-
conscious, i.e. it performs an unconscious regulation of
conscious activity. In the neurotic state the unconscious
appears in such strong contrast to the conscious that
compensation is disturbed. The aim of analytical
therapy, therefore, is to make the unconscious con-
tents conscious in order that compensation may be re-
established.
11. Concretism : By this term I understand a definite
peculiarity of thought and feeling which represents -the
antithesis to abstraction. The actual meaning of concrete
is * grown together'. A concretely-thought concept is
one that has grown together or coalesced with other
concepts. Such a concept is not abstract, not isolated,
and independently thought, but always impure and related.
It is not a differentiated concept, but is still embedded
in the sense-conveyed material of perception. Concre-
tistic thinking moves among exclusively concrete con-
334
DEFINITIONS
cepts and views; it is constantly related to sensation.
Similarly concretistic feeling is never free from sensuous
relatedness.
Primitive thinking and feeling are exclusively con-
cretistic; they are always related to sensation. The
thought of the primitive has no detached independence,
but clings to the material phenomenon. The most he
can do is to raise it to the level of analogy . Primitive
feeling is always equally related to the material phen-
omenon. His thought and feeling depend upon sensation
and are only faintly differentiated from it Concretism,
therefore, is an archaism (q.v.). The magical influence of
the fetish is not experienced as a subjective state of
feeling, but sensed as a magical effect. This is the
concretism of feeling. The primitive does not experience
the idea of divinity as a subjective content, but the
sacred tree is the habitat — nay, even the deity himself.
This is concretism of thinking. With civilized man, con-
cretism of thought consists in the inability to conceive
of anything which differs from the immediately obvious
external facts, or in the inability to discriminate subjective
feeling from the sense-given object.
Concretism is a concept which falls under the more
general concept of " participation mystique” (q.v.). Just
as "participation mystique” represents a fusion of the
individual with outer objects, so concretism represents a
mixing-up of thought and feeling with sensation. It is
a state of concretism when the object of thinking and
feeling is at the same time also an object of sensation.
This coalescence prevents a differentiation of thought and
feeling, anchoring both functions within the sphere of
sensation, i.e. sensuous relatedness; accordingly they can
never be developed into pure functions, but must always
remain the mere retainers of sensation. The result of
this is a predominance of the factor of sensation in the
DEFINITIONS
535
psychological orientation. (Concerning the importance
of the factor of sensation v. Sensation; Types):
The disadvantage of concretism is the subjection of
function to sensation. Because sensation is the perception
of physiological stimuli, concretism either rivets the
function to the sphere of sense or constantly leads it
back there. The effect of this is a sensual subjection
of the psychological functions, favouring the influence
of external facts at the expense of individual psychic
autonomy. From the standpoint of the recognition of
facts, this orientation is, of course, valuable, but from the
standpoint of the interpretation of facts and their relation
to the individual it is definitely prejudicial. Concretism
produces a state where facts gain the paramount import-
ance, thereby suppressing the individuality and its freedom
in favour of the objective process. But since the individual
is not only determined by physiological stimuli, but also
by factors which may even be opposed to the external
fact, concretism effects a projection of these inner factors
into the outer fact, thus provoking an almost superstitious
overvaluation of mere facts, as is precisely the case with
the primitive. A good example of this is seen in Nietzsche,
whose concretism of feeling resulted in an excessive valua-
tion of diet; the materialism of Moleschott is a similar
instance (“Man is what he eats”). An example of the
superstitious overvaluation of facts is also provided by
the hypostasizing of the concept of energy in the monism
of Ostwald.
12. Consciousness : By consciousness I understand the
relatedness of psychic contents to the ego (v. Ego) in so
far as they are sensed as such by the ego \ In so far as
relations are not sensed as such by the ego, they are un-
* Natorp, EinUitung in der Psych., p. xx. Also Lipps, Leiifaden
der Psych., p. 3.
536 DEFINITIONS
conscious (j .».). Consciousness is the function or activity 1 * *
which maintains the relation of psychic contents with the
ego. Consciousness is not identical with psyche , since, in
my view, psyche represents the totality of all the psychic
contents, and these are not necessarily all bound up
directly with the ego, i.e. related to it in such a way that
they take on the quality of consciousness. . There exist
a great many psychic complexes and these are not all,
necessarily, connected with the ego *.
13. Constructive : This concept is used by me in an
equivalent sense to synthetic , almost in fact as an illustra-
tion of the latter concept. Constructive means ‘ building
up \ I employ ‘ constructive * and ‘ synthetic ’, in describing
a method that is opposed to the reductive 8 . The con-
structive method is concerned with the elaboration of
unconscious products (dreams, phantasies, etc.). It takes
the unconscious product as a basis or starting point, as
a symbolical (q.v.) expression, which, stretching on ahead
as it were, represents a coming phase of psychological
development 4 5 . In this connection, Maeder actually speaks
of a prospective function of the unconscious, which half
playfully anticipates the future psychological develop-
ment 8 . Adler, too, recognises an anticipatory function
of the unconscious 6 * . It is obvious that the product of the
unconscious must not be regarded as a finished thing, a
sort of end-product; for in this case it would be dis-
1 Cf. Riehl (*. Einf. in die Phil., 161), who regards consciousness
as both " activity " and " process
* Jung, The Psychology of Dementia Pracox.
8 Jung, Content of the Psychoses (Collected Papers, 2nd edn., ch.
adii, p- 312)
4 A detailed example of this is to be found in Jung, Psych, and
Path, of so-called Occult Phenomena (Collected Papers, 2nd edn.)
5 Maeder, The Dream Problem (Monograph Series. Nervous and
Mental Disease Pub. Co., New York)
8 Adler, The Neurotic Constitution .
DEFINITIONS
537
possessed of every practical significance. Even Freud
allows the dream a teleological rdle as the “guardian of
sleep” 1 , although for him its prospective function is
essentially restricted to “ wishes ”. The practical character
of unconscious tendencies, however, cannot be disputed
a priori, if we are to accept the analogy with other psycho-
logical or physiological functions. We conceive the
product of the unconscious, therefore, as an expression
orientated to a goal or purpose, but characterizing the
objective in symbolical metaphor 2 .
In accordance with this conception, the constructive
method of interpretation is not so much concerned with
the basic sources underlying the unconscious product,
or with the mere raw materials as such, as it is with the
aim to raise the symbolical product to a general and
comprehensible expression 3 . The free associations of the
unconscious product are thus considered with a view to a
psychological objective and not from the standpoint of
derivation. They are viewed from the angle of future
action or inaction ; their relation to the conscious situation
is thereby scrupulously considered, for with the com-
pensatory conception of the unconscious its activity
has an essentially supplementary significance for the
conscious situation. Since it is now a question of an
anticipatory orientation, the actual relation to the object
does not loom so large as in the reductive procedure,
which is preoccupied with the actual past relations with
the object. It is much more a question of the subjective
attitude, in which the object merely signifies a sign of the
subjective tendencies. The aim of the constructive method,
1 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams .
* Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism : transl. by
Dr S. E. Jelliffe (London, Kegan Paul & Co.) pp. 149 ff., expresses
himself in a similar sense in his formulation of anagogic significance.
s Jung, The Psychology of Unconscious Processes ( Collected Papers ,
2nd Ed.)
S*
53 «
DEFINITIONS
therefore, is the production of a meaning from the uncon-
scious product which is definitely related to the subject’s
future attitude. Since, as a rule, the unconscious has the
power of shaping only symbolical expressions, the con-
structive method seeks to elucidate the symbolically
expressed meaning in such a way that a correct indication
is supplied to the conscious orientation, whereby the
subject may discover that harmony with the unconscious
which his future action requires.
Thus, just as no psychological method of interpretation
is based exclusively upon the association-material of the
analysant, the constructive method also makes use of
certain comparative material. And, just as the reductive
interpretation employs parallels drawn from biological,
physiological, literary, folk-lore, and other sources, the
constructive treatment of the intellectual problem is
dependent upon philosophical parallels, while the intuitive
problem is referred to parallels in mythology and the
history of religion.
The constructive method is necessarily individualistic ,
since a future collective attitude is developed only through
the individual. The reductive method is, on the contrary,
collective, since it leads back from the individual case to
general basic attitudes or facts. The constructive method
can be directly applied also by the subject upon his own
material. In this latter case it is an intuitive method,
devoted to the elucidation of the general meaning of an
unconscious product This elucidation succeeds through
an associative (hence not actively apperceptive ; q.v) articu-
lation of wider material, which so enriches and deepens the
symbolical expression of the unconscious that it eventually
attains a degree of clarity through which it can become
comprehensible to consciousness. Through this enriching
of the symbolical expression it becomes interwoven with
more universal associations, and is therewith assimilated'.
DEFINITIONS
539
14. Differentiation means the development of differ-
ences, the separation of parts from a whole. In this work
I employ the concept chiefly in respect to psychological
functions. So long as one function is still so merged with
one or more of the other functions — as for example thinking
with feeling, or feeling with sensation, etc. — as to be quite
unable to appear alone, it is in an archaic (< q.v .) state, and
therefore undifferentiated, i.e. it is not separated out as a
special part from the whole having its own independent
existence. An undifferentiated thinking is incapable of
thinking apart from other functions, i.e. it is constantly
mixed up with sensations, feelings, or intuitions; such
thinking may, for instance, become blended with sensations
and phantasies, as exemplified in the sexualization (Freud)
of feeling and thinking in neurosis. The undifferentiated
function is also commonly characterized by the qualities
of ambivalency and ambitendency \ i.e. every positive brings
with it an equally strong negative, whereby characteristic
inhibitions spring up in the application of the undifferen-
tiated function. Such a function suffers also from a fusing
together of its individual parts; thus an undifferentiated
faculty of sensation, for instance, is impaired through an
amalgamation of the separate spheres of sensation
(“audition colori£e”), and undifferentiated feeling through
confounding hatred with love. Just so far as a function is
wholly or mainly unconscious is it also undifferentiated, i.e.
it is not only fused together in its parts but also merged
with other functions.
Differentiation consists in the separation of the selected
function from other functions, and in the separation of
its individual parts from each other. Without differentia-
1 Bleuler, Die Negative SuggesHbilitdt (Psych. Near. Wochenschr
1904, 27-28).
Idem , Zur Theorie des Schixophrenen Negativismus (Psych. Neur
Wochenschr 19x0, 18-21).
Idem. Lehrbuch der Psychiatric , pp. 92 , 285.
540 DEFINITIONS
tion direction is impossible, since the direction of a function
is dependent upon the isolation and exclusion of the
irrelevant. Through fusion with what is irrelevant, direc-
tion becomes impossible'; only a differentiated function
proves itself capable of direction.
15. Dissimilation : v. Assimilation.
16. Ego: By ego, I understand a complex of repre-
sentations which constitutes the centrum of my field of
consciousness and appears to possess a very high degree
of continuity and identity. Hence I also speak of an
ego-complex 1 .
The ego-complex is as much a content as it is a con-
dition of consciousness (q.v.), since a psychic element is
conscious to me just in so far as it is related to my ego-
complex. But, inasmuch as the ego is only the centrum
of my field of consciousness, it is not identical with the
totality of my psyche, being merely a complex among other
complexes. Hence I discriminate between the ego and
the Self, since the ego is only the subject of my con-
sciousness, while the Self is the subject of my totality:
hence it also includes the unconscious psyche. In this
sense the Self would be an (ideal) factor which embraces
and includes the ego. In unconscious phantasy the Self
often appears as a super-ordinated or ideal personality,
.as Faust in relation to Goethe and Zarathustra to Nietzsche.
In the effort of idealization the archaic features of the Self
are represented as practically severed from the ‘higher’
Self, as in the figure of Mephisto with Goethe or in that
of Epimetheus with Spitteler. In the Christian psychology
the severance is extreme in the figures of Christ and the
devil or Anti-christ ; while with Nietzsche Zarathustra dis-
covers his shadow in the ‘ ugliest man \
1 Tung, The Psychology of Dementia Pracox .
DEFINITIONS
54 *
17. Emotion — v. Affect.
18. Enantiodromia means ‘a running counter to 1 .
In the philosophy of Heraclitus 1 this concept is used to
designate the play of opposites in the course of events,
namely, the view which maintains that everything that
exists goes over into its opposite. “ From the living comes
death, and from the dead, life ; from the young, old age ;
and from the old, youth; from waking, sleep; and from
sleep, waking ; the stream of creation and decay never
stands still.” 2 “ Construction and destruction, destruction
and construction — this is the norm which rules in every
circle of natural life from the smallest to the greatest.
Just as the cosmos itself emerged from the primal fire, so
must it return once more into the same — a double process
running its measured course through vast periods, a drama
eternally re-enacted.” 3
This is the enantiodromia of Heraclitus in the words
of qualified interpreters. There are abundant sayings
from the mouth of Heraclitus himself which express the
same view. Thus he says :
“ Even Nature herself striveth after the opposite, bringing
harmony not from like things, but from contrasts."
14 When they are bora, they prepare to live, and therewith
to suffer death."
“ For souls it is death to become water, for water death to
become earth. From the earth cometh water, and from water
soul.”
“ Everywhere mutual exchange ; the All in exchange for
fire, and fire in exchange for the All, just as gold for wares and
wares for gold."
1 Stobaeus, Ekl. i, 58 : {t elpapfib^p $4 \6yop 4k rip 4pavrioSpofjUas
dijjUQvpybv rO)t tvrwv. ”
% Zeller, History of Greek Philosophy : transl. by S. F. Alleyne,
vol. ii, p. 17 (London : Longmans & Co.)
s Gomperz, Greek Thinkers , vol. i : transl. by Laurie Magnus, p. 64
(London : Murray, 1901)
54 *
DEFINITIONS
In a psychological application of his principle Heraclitus
says:
“ Let ye never lack riches, O Ephesians, lest your depravity
cometh to the light /* 1
I use the term enantiodromia to describe the emergence
of the unconscious opposite, with particular relation to its
chronological sequence. This characteristic phenomenon
occurs almost universally wherever an extreme, onesided
tendency dominates the conscious life; for this involves
the gradual development of an equally strong, unconscious
counterposition, which first becomes manifest in an in-
hibition of conscious activities, and subsequently leads to
an interruption of conscious direction. A good example
of enantiodromia is seen in the psychology of Saul of
Tarsus and his conversion to Christianity ; as also in the
story of the conversion of Raymond Lully ; 2 in the
Christ-identification of the sick Nietzsche with his deifica-
tion and subsequent hatred of Wagner; in the trans-
formation of Swedenborg from scholar into seer, etc.
19. Extraversion means an outward-turning of the
libido (q.v.). With this concept I denote a manifest
relatedness of subject to object in the sense of a positive
movement of subjective interest towards the object.
Everyone in the state of extraversion thinks, feels, and
acts in relation to the object, and moreover in a direct
and clearly observable fashion, so that no doubt can exist
about his positive dependence upon the object In a
sense, therefore, extraversion is an outgoing transference
of interest from the subject to the object If it is an
intellectual extraversion, the subject thinks himself into
the object ; if a feeling extraversion, then the subject feels
i Diels, Die Fragments der VorsokraHker, 2 te AuflL, i, 79 (1907).
* ' Doctor Dlu min atus * (1234-1315), who as a soldier was notorious
for his debaucheries, but later entirely changed his way of life and be*
came a crusader against the Moslem*.
DEFINITIONS
543
himself into the object The state of extraversion means
a strong, if not exclusive, determination by the object
One should speak of an active extraversion when deliber-
ately willed, and of a passive extraversion when the object
compels it, i.e. attracts the interest of the subject of its
own accord, even against the latter’s intention. Should
the state of extraversion become habitual, the extroverted
type (». Type) appears.
20. Peeling (Fiihlen) : I count feeling among the four
focir psychological functions. I am unable to support the
psychological school that regards feeling as a secondary
phenomenon dependent upon “presentations” or sensa-
tions, but in company with Hoffding, Wundt, Lehmann,
Kulpe, Baldwin, and others, I regard it as an independent
function sui generis. 1
Feeling is primarily a process that takes place between
the ego and a given content, a process, moreover, that
imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of
acceptance or rejection (‘like’ or ‘dislike’); but it can
also appear, as it were, isolated in the form of ‘mood’,
quite apart from the momentary contents of consciousness
or momentary sensations. This latter process may be
causally related to previous conscious contents, though
not necessarily so, since, as psychopathology abundantly
proves, it can take origin equally well from unconscious
contents. But even the mood, whether it be regarded as
a general or only a partial feeling, signifies a valuation;
not, however, a valuation of one definite, individual,
i For the history both of the theory and concept of feeling compare :
Wundt, Grand*, d. Physiolog. Psych. Idem, Grundr. d. Psychol.,
pp. 35 fi.
Nahlowsky, Das GcfOhlslebsn in seinsn wesentlichen Erschsinungen.
Ribot, Psychologic dsr Gsfahle.
I ebxaaxm, Die Hauptgssetxs des msnscMichcn GcfUhlslebens.
Villa, Contemporary Psychology, transL by H. Manacorda (1903J.
544
DEFINITIONS
conscious content, but of the whole conscious situation
at the moment, and, once again, with special reference to
the question of acceptance or rejection.
Feeling, therefore, is an entirely subjective process, which
may be in every respect independent of external stimuli,
although chiming in with every sensation 1 . Even an
* indifferent ’ sensation possesses a ‘ feeling tone ’, namely,
that of indifference, which again expresses a certain valua-
tion. Hence feeling is also a kind of judging, differing,
however, from an intellectual judgment, in that it does not
aim at establishing an intellectual connection but is solely
concerned with the setting up of a subjective criterion of
acceptance or rejection. The valuation by feeling extends
to every content of consciousness, of whatever kind it may
be. When the intensity of feeling is increased an affect
(v. Affect) results, which is a state of feeling accompanied
by appreciable bodily innervations. Feeling is distin-
guished from affect by the fact that it gives rise to no
perceptible physical innervations, i.e. just as much or as
little as the ordinary thinking process.
Ordinary ‘ simple * feeling is concrete (q.v.), i.e. it is mixed
up with other function-elements, frequently with sensation
for instance. In this particular case we might term it
affective, or (as in this book, for instance) feeling-sensation,
by which a well-nigh inseparable blending of feeling with
sensation elements is to be understood. This characteristic
fusion is universally present where feeling is still an un-
differentiated function, hence most evidently in the psyche
of a neurotic with a differentiated thinking.
Although feeling is an independent function in itself,
it may lapse into a state of dependence upon another
function, upon thinking, for instance ; whereby a feeling is
produced which is merely kept as an accompaniment to
i On the distinction between feeling and sensation compare Wundt
Grundz . d. phys. Psychol., i, pp. 350 ft.
DEFINITIONS
545
thinking, and is not repressed from consciousness only in
so far as it fits in with the intellectual associations.
It is important to distinguish abstract feeling from
ordinary concrete feeling. For, just as the abstract concept
(t>. Thinking) does away with the differences of the things
embraced in it, so abstract feeling, by being raised above
the differences of the individual feeling-values, establishes
a * mood ’, or state of feeling, which embraces and therewith
abolishes the different individual values. Thus, just as
thinking marshals the conscious contents under concepts,
feeling arranges them according to their value. The more
concrete the feeling, the more subjective and personal the
value it confers ; but the more abstract it is, the more
general and objective is the value it bestows. Just as a
completely abstract concept no longer coincides with the
individuality and peculiarity of things, only revealing their
universality and indistinctness, so too the completely
abstract feeling no longer coincides with the individual
instant and its feeling quality but only with the totality
of all instants and their indistinctness. Accordingly, feeling
like t hinking is a rational function, since, as is shown by
experience, values in general are bestowed according to the
laws of reason, just as concepts in general are framed after
the laws of reason.
Naturally the essence of feeling is not characterized
by the foregoing definitions : they only serve to convey
its external manifestations. The conceptual capacity of
the intellect proves incapable of formulating the real
nature of feeling in abstract terms, since thinking belongs
to a category quite incommensurable with feeling. In
fact, no basic psychological function whatsoever can be
completely expressed by any other one. This circumstance
is responsible for the fact that no intellectual definition will
ever be able to render the specific character of feeling in
any adequate measure. The mere fact that feelings are
54 ®
DEFINITIONS
classified adds nothing to the understanding of their nature,
because even the most exact classification will be able
to yield only that intellectually seizable content to which or
with which feelings appear connected, but without thereby
apprehending the specific nature of feeling. Thus, however
many varying and intellectually seizable classes of contents
there may be, just as many feelings can be differentiated,
without ever arriving at an exhaustive classification of
feelings themselves; because, beyond every possible class
of contents accessible to the intellect, there still exist
feelings which are beyond intellectual classification. The
very idea of a classification is intellectual and therefore
incommensurable with the nature of feeling. Hence, we
must content ourselves with our attempts to define the
limits of the concept
The nature of a feeling-valuation may be compared
with intellectual apperception as an apperception of value.
An active and a passive feeling-apperception can be dis-
tinguished. The passive feeling-act is characterized by
the fact that a content excites or attracts the feeling;
it compels a feeling-participation on the part of the subject
The active feeling-act on the contrary, confers value from
the subject — it is a deliberate evaluation of contents in
accordance with feeling and not in accordance with intel-
lectual intention. Hence active feeling is a directed function,
an act of will, as for instance loving as opposed to in
love. This latter state would be undirected , passive feeling,
as, indeed, the ordinary colloquial term suggests, since it
describes the former as activity and the latter as a condition.
Undirected feeling is feeling-intuition. Thus, in the stricter
sense, only the active, directed feeling should be termed
rationed : the passive is definitely irrational , since it establishes
values without voluntary participation, occasionally even
against the subject’s intention.
When the total attitude of the individual is orientated
DEFINITIONS
547
by the function of feeling, we speak of a feeling-type
(». Type).
•
21. Feeling-into (Einfuhlung) is an introjecHon ( q.v .) of
the object into the ego. For the fuller description of the
concept of feeling-into, see text of Chapter vii (v. also
Projection).
22. Function : By psychological function I understand
a certain form of psychic activity that remains theoretically
the same under varying circumstances. From the energic
standpoint a function is a phenomenal form of libido (q.v.)
which theoretically remains constant, in much the same
way as physical force can be considered as the form or
momentary manifestation of physical energy. I distinguish
four basic functions in all, two rational and two irrational
viz. thinking and feeling, sensation and intuition. 1 can give
no a priori reason for selecting just these four as v»acfr
functions ; I can only point to the fact that this conception
has shaped itself out of many years’ experience.
I differentiate these functions from one another, because
they are neither mutually relatable nor mutually reducible.
The principle of thinking, for instance, is absolutely
different from the principle of feeling, and so forth. I
make a capital distinction between this concept of function
and phantasy-activity, or reverie, because, to my mind,
phantasying is a peculiar form of activity which can
manifest itself in all the four functions.
In my view, both will and attention are entirely
secondary psychic phenomena.
23. Idea : In this work the concept of idea is sometimes
used to designate a certain psychological element intimately
connected with what I term image (q.v.). The image may
be either personal or impersonal in its origin. In the latter
case, it is collective and is distinguished by mythological
548
DEFINITIONS
qualities. I then term it primordial image. When, on the
contrary, it has no mythological character, i.e. lacks the
intuitive qualities and is merely collective, I speak of an
idea. Accordingly I employ the term idea as something
which expresses the meaning of a primordial image that
has been abstracted or detached from the concretism of
the image. In so far as the idea is an abstraction, it has
the appearance of something derived, or developed, from
elementary factors, a product of thinking. This is the
sense, as something secondary and derived, in which it is
regarded by Wundt 1 and many others. Since, however,
the idea is merely the formulated meaning of a primordial
image in which it was already symbolically represented,
the essence of the idea is not merely derived, or produced,
but, considered psychologically, it has an a priori exist- e my?
as a given possibility of thought-connections in general.
Hence, in accordance with its nature (not with its formula-
tion), the idea is an a priori existing and determining
psychological factor. In this sense Plato sees the idea as
a primordial image of things, while Kant defines it as
the “archetype of the use of the mind”; hence it is a
transcendent concept which, as such, transcends the limit
of experienceable things *. It is a concept demanded by
reason, “whose object can never be met with in experi-
ence ” *. Kant says :
“ For, although we are bound to say of transcendent reasonal
concepts They are only ideas, yet are we in no way justified in
regarding them as superfluous and unreal For, although no
object can be determined by them, nevertheless fundamentally
and unperceived they can serve the mind as canons for its extended
and harmonious use, whereby it discerns no object more acute ly
than it would according to its own concepts, yet is guided in this
1 Wundt, Phil. Stud., vii, t3.
* Critique of Pure Season : transL by F. May Mtiller (London •
Macmillan, i88r).
* Logic, p. r40.
DEFINITIONS
549
discernment in a better and broader approach. Not to mention
the fact that they may, perhaps, bring about a transition from
natural ideas to practical concepts, even providing moral ideas
with a certain associative texture of the speculative findings of
reason '\ 1
Schopenhauer says :
“ By idea I understand every definite and established grade of
the objectification of will, in so far as it is a thing-in-itself and,
therefore, removed from multiplicity ; such grades, moreover,
are related to individual things as their eternal forms or proto-
types”.*
With Schopenhauer, however, the idea is plastic in char-
acter, because he conceives it wholly in the sense of what
I describe as primordial image ; it is, however, indiscernible
to the individual, revealing itself only to the “ pure Subject
of cognition ”, which is raised above will and individuality
(§ 49 ).
Hegel completely hypostasizes the idea, and gives it
the attribute of the only real existence. It is “ the con-
cept, the reality of the concept and the one-ness of both ”, 8
It is “ eternal generation ” 4
Lasswitz regards the idea as a “law indicating the
direction, in which our experience should develop”. It
is the “ most certain and supreme reality ”. 6
With Cohen, the idea is the “ self-consciousness of the
concept ”, the “ foundation ” of being 6 .
I do not wish to multiply further evidence to establish
the primary nature of the idea. These quotations should
sufficiently demonstrate that the idea is conceived also
as a fundamental, a priori existent factor. It possesses
this latter quality from its antecedent, the* primordial,
symbolical image (q.v.). Its secondary nature of an abstract
i Critique of Pure Reason , p. 285.
* World as Will and Idea , transl. by Haldane and Kemp, vol. i,
par. 25 (London : Kegan Paul & Co.)
* Aesthetik, i, 138. * Logic , iii, pp. 242 ff. 8 Wirhlichkeii , pp.
152, 154. 8 Logik, pp. 14, 18.
55 o DEFINITIONS
and derived entity it receives from the rational elaboration
to which the primordial image is subjected before it is
made suitable for rational usage. Inasmuch as the prim-
ordial image is a constant autochthonic psychological factor
repeating itself in all times and places, we might also, in
a certain sense, say the same of the idea, although, on
account of its rational nature, it is much more subject to
modification by rational elaboration, which in its turn is
strongly influenced by tim e and circumstance. It is this
rational elaboration which gives it formulations correspond-
ing with the spirit of the time. A few philosophers, by
virtue of its derivation from the primordial image, ascribe
a transcendent quality to it ; this does not really belong
to the idea as I conceive it, but rather to the primordial
image, about which a timeless quality clings, established
as it is from all time as an integral and inherent constituent
of the human mind. Its quality of independence is derived
also from the primordial image which was never made and
is constantly present, appearing so spontaneously in per-
ception that we might also say it strives independently
towards its own realization, since it is sensed by the mind
as an actively determining power. Such a view, however,
is not general, but presumably a question of attitude
(v. Chap. vii). The idea is a psychological factor which
not only determines thought but, in the form of a practical
idea, also conditions feeling. As a general rule, however,
I only employ the term idea, either when I am speaking
of the determination of thought in a thinking-type, or
when denoting the determination of feeling in a feeling-
type. On the other hand, it is terminologically correct to
speak of determination by the primordial image, when we
are dealing with an a priori determination of an undiffer-
entiated function.
The dual nature of the idea, as something that is at
the same time both primary and secondary, is responsible
DEFINITIONS
55i
for the fact that the expression is occasionally used
promiscuously with ‘primordial image’. For the intro-
verted attitude the idea is the primum movens ; for the
extraverted, it is a product.
24. Identification : This term connotes a psychological
process in which the personality is either partially 01
totally dissimilated (y. Assimilation) from itself. Identifica-
tion is an estrangement of the subject from himself in
favour of an object in which the subject is, to a certain
extent, disguised. For example, identification with the
father practically signifies an adoption of the ways and
manners of the father, as though the son were the same
as the father and not a separate individual. Identification
is distinguished from imitation by the fact that identifica-
tion is an unconscious imitation, whereas imitation is a
conscious copying.
Imitation is an indispensable expedient for the de-
veloping personality of youth. It has a beneficial effect
so long as it does not merely serve as a means of accom-
modation, thus hindering the development of a suitable
individual method. Similarly, identification may be pro-
gressive in so far as the individual way is not yet available.
But, whenever a better individual possibility presents
itself, identification manifests its pathological character
by proving henceforth just as great a hindrance as before
it was unwittingly supporting and beneficial. For now it
has a dissociating influence, dividing the subject into two
mutually estranged personalities. Identification is not
always related to persons but also to things (for instance,
a spiritual movement, or a business, etc.) and to psycho-
logical functions. In fact, the latter case is particularly
important (c/. Chap. ii.). Identification, in such a case,
leads to the formation of a secondary character, whereby
the individual is so identified with his most developed
55 2
DEFINITIONS
function that he is very largely or even wholly removed
from his original character-foundation, so that his real
individuality goes into the unconscious. This is nearly
always the rule with men who possess one differentiated
function. It is, in fact, a necessary transitional stage on
the way to individuation.
Identification with the parents or nearest members of
the family is a normal phenomenon, in so far as it coincides
with the a priori or pre-existing familial identity. In such
a case, it is better not to speak of identification but of
identity, a term which corresponds with the actual matter
of fact For identification with members of the family is
to be distinguished from identity by the fact, that it is not
given as an a priori fact, but arises secondarily only through
the following process: — As the individual is developing
out of the original familial identity, his process of adapta-
tion and development brings him upon an obstacle which
cannot immediately be mastered ; a damming-up of libido,
accordingly, takes place and gradually seeks a regressive
outlet The regression brings about a revivification of
earlier states, among others the state of familial identity.
The identification with the members of the family cor-
responds with this regressive revival of a state of identity
which has actually almost been overcome. Every identi-
fication with persons takes place in this way. Identification
has always a purpose, namely, to obtain an advantage,
push aside an obstacle, or solve a task after the manner of
another individual.
25. Identity : I use the term identity in the case of a
psychological equality. It is always an unconscious
phenomenon, since a conscious equality would necessarily
involve the consciousness of two similar things — hence im-
mediately presupposing a separation of subject and object,
whereby the phenomenon of identity would be already
DEFINITIONS
55 3
resolved. Psychological identity presupposes its uncon-
sciousness. It is a characteristic of the primitive mentality,
and is the actual basis of “ participation mystique ”, which,
in reality, is merely a relic of the original psychological
non-differentiation of subject and object — hence of the
primordial unconscious state. It is, therefore, a character-
istic of the early infantile mental condition. Finally, it is
also a characteristic of the unconscious content in adult
civilized man, which, in so far as it has not become a
conscious content, remains permanently in the state of
identity with objects. From an identity with the parents
proceeds the identification (q.v.) with them ; similarly, the
possibility of projection and introjection (q.v.) depends upon
identity. Identity is primarily an unconscious equality
with the object. It is neither an assumption of equality nor
an identification , but an a priori equality which has never
appeared as an object of consciousness. Upon identity
is founded the naive presumption that the psychology
of one man is the same as that of another, that the
same motive is universally valid, that what is agree-
able to me must also be obviously pleasurable for others,
and that what is immoral to me must also be immoral
for others, and so forth. This state of identity is
responsible also for the almost universal desire to
correct in others what most demands change in one-
self. Upon identity rests the possibility of suggestion
and psychic contamination. Identity appears with special
distinctness in pathological cases, as for instance in
paranoic delusions of 4 influencing * and persecution, where
the patient's own subjective contents are presumed, as
a matter of course, to proceed from others. But identity
means also the possibility of a conscious collectivism
and a conscious social attitude, which found their
loftiest expression in the Christian ideal of brotherly
love.
554
DEFINITIONS
26. Image : When I speak of image in this book, I do
not mean the psychic reflection of the external object, but
a concept essentially derived from a poetic figure of
speech ; namely, the phantasy-image, a presentation which
is only indirectly related to the perception of the external
object. This image depends much more upon unconscious
phantasy-activity, and as the product of such activity it
appears more or less abruptly in consciousness, somewhat
in the nature of a vision or hallucination but without
possessing the pathological character of similar products
occurring in a morbid clinical picture. The image has the
psychological character of a phantasy-presentation, and
never the quasi-real character of hallucination, i.e . it never
takes the place of reality, and its character of ‘inner’
image always distinguishes it from sensuous reality. As
a rule, it lacks all projection into space, although in
exceptional cases it can also appear to a certain extent
externalized.
Such a mode of appearance must be termed archaic
(q.v.) when it is not primarily pathological, though in no
way does this do away with its archaic character. Upon
the primitive level, i.e. in the mentality of the primitives,
the inner image is easily projected into space as a visual
or auditory hallucination without being a pathological
phenomenon.
Although, as a rule, no reality-value belongs to the
image, its significance for the psychic life is often thereby
enhanced, i.e. a greater psychological value clings to it,
representing an inner ‘ reality ’ which occasionally far out-
weighs the physical importance of ‘external’ reality. In
such a case, the orientation of the individual is concerned
less with adaptation to reality than with an adaptation to
the inner claims.
The inner image is a complex factor, compounded of
the most varied material from the most varied sources.
DEFINITIONS
555
It is no conglomerate, however, but an integral product,
with its own autonomous purpose. The image is a con-
centrated expression of the total psychic situation , not merely,
nor even pre-eminently, of unconscious contents pure and
simple. It undoubtedly does express the contents of the
unconscious, though not the whole of its contents in general,
but merely those momentarily constellated This con-
stellation is the product of the specific activity of the
unconscious on the one hand, and of the momentary
conscious situation on the other: this always stimulates
the activity of associated subliminal material at the same
time as it also inhibits the irrelevant. Accordingly the
image is equally an expression of the unconscious as of
the conscious situation of the moment. The interpretation
of its meaning, therefore, can proceed exclusively neither
from the unconscious nor from the conscious, but only
from their reciprocal relation.
I term the image primordial 1 when it possesses an
archaic character. 1 speak of its archaic character when
the image is in striking unison with familiar mythological
motives. In this case it expresses material primarily
derived from the collective unconscious (g.v.), while, at
the same time, it indicates that the momentary conscious
situation is influenced not so much from the side of the
personal as from the collective.
A personal image has neither archaic character nor
collective significance, but expresses contents of the per-
sonal unconscious and a personally conditioned, conscious
situation.
The primordial image (elsewhere also termed the
* archetype ’ s ) is always collective, i.e. it is at least
common to entire nations or epochs. In all probability
* Following an expression used by J. Burckhardt. Cf. also Jung,
Psychology of the Unconscious, p. 41.
1 Jung, Instinct and the Unconscious (Journal of Psychology, vol
x, x).
55 *
DEFINITIONS
the most important mythological motives are common
to all times and races; I have, in fact, demonstrated a
whole series of motives from Grecian mythology in the
dreams and phantasies of thoroughbred negroes suffering
from mental disorders 1 .
The primordial image is a mnemic deposit, an imprint
( “ engramm” — Semon), which has arisen through a con-
densation of innumerable, similar processes. It is primarily
a precipitate or deposit, and therefore a typical basic form
of a certain ever-recurring psychic experience. As a
mythological motive, therefore, it is a constantly effective
and continually recurring expression which is either
awakened, or appropriately formulated, by certain psychic
experiences. The primordial image, then, is the psychic
expression of an anatomically and physiologically deter-
mined disposition. If one supports the view that a
definite anatomical structure is the product of environ-
mental conditions upon living matter, the primordial
image in its constant and universal distribution corresponds
with an equally universal and continuous external influence,
which must, therefore, have the character of a natural law.
In this way, the myth could be related to Nature (as, for
instance, the solar myths to the daily rising and setting of
the sun, or to the equally obvious seasonal changes). But
we should still be left with the question as to why the
sun, for instance, with its obvious changes, should not
appear frank and unveiled as a content of the myth.
The fact that the sun, or the moon, or meteorological
processes do, at least, appear allegorized, points, however,
to an independent collaboration of the psyche, which in
this case can be no mere product or imitation of environ-
mental conditions. Then whence this capacity of the
psyche to gain a standpoint outside sense-perception?
1 A remarkable example of an archaic image is quoted in Jung,
Psychol, of the Unconscious , p. io8.
DEFINITIONS
537
Whence its capacity for achieving something beyond or
different from the verdict of the senses? We are forced
to assume, therefore, that the given brain-structure does
not owe its particular nature merely to the effect of
surrounding conditions, but also and just as much to the
peculiar and autonomous quality of living matter, i.e. to
a fundamental law of life. The given constitution of the
organism, therefore, is on the one hand a product of outer
conditions, while on the other it is inherently determined
by the nature of living matter. Accordingly, the primordial
image is just as undoubtedly related to certain manifest,
ever-renewing and therefore constantly effective Nature-
processes as it is to certain inner determinants of the
mental life and to life in general. The organism confronts
light with a new formation, the eye, and the psyche meets
the process of Nature with a symbolical image, which
apprehends the Nature-process just as the eye catches
the light And in the same way as the eye bears witness
to the peculiar and independent creative activity of living
matter, the primordial image expresses the unique and
unconditioned creative power of the mind.
The primordial image, therefore, is a recapitulatory
expression of the living process. It gives a co-ordinating
meaning both to the sensuous and to the inner mental
perceptions, which at first appear without either order or
connection; thereby liberating psychic energy from its
bondage to sheer uncomprehended perception. But it also
links up the energies, released through the perception of
stimuli, to a definite meaning, which serves to guide action
along the path which corresponds with this meaning. It
loosens unavailable, dammed-up energy, since it always
refers the mind to Nature, transforming sheer natural
instinct into mental forma
The primordial image is the preliminary stage of the
idea (q.v.) its maternal soil. By detaching from it that
DEFINITIONS
53 *
concretism which is peculiar and necessary to the
primordial image, the reason develops the concept — i.s.
the idea — which, moreover, is distinguished from every
other concept by the fact that it is not only given by
experience but is actually inferred as underlying all
experience. The idea possesses this quality from the
primordial image, which as the expression of a specific
cerebral structure also imparts a definite form to every
experience.
The degree of psychological efficacy belonging to the
primordial image is determined by the attitude of the
individual. When the general attitude is introverted as
a result of the withdrawal of libido from the outer object,
a reinforcement of the inner object or idea naturally takes
place. This produces a veiy intensive development of
ideas along the line unconsciously traced out by the
primordial image. In this way the primordial image
indirectly reaches the surface. The further course of intel-
lectual development leads to the idea, which is merely
the primordial image at the stage of intellectual formula-
tion. Only the development of the counter-function can
take the idea further, i.e. when once the idea is appre-
hended intellectually, it strives to become effective in
life. Hence it attracts feeling, which, however, in such
a case is much less differentiated, and therefore more con-
cretistic, than thinking. Thus the feeling is impure, and
because undifferentiated, is still fused with the unconscious.
Hence the individual is unable to reconcile feeling so-
constituted with the idea. In such a case, the primordial
image, appearing in symbolic form in the inner field of
vision, embraces, by virtue of its concrete nature, the
feeling existing in an undifferentiated, concrete state;
but at the same time, by virtue of its intrinsic significance,
it also embraces the idea, of which indeed it is the
mother — thus reconciling idea with feeling. Hence the
DEFINITIONS
559
primordial image appears in the r 61 e of mediator, once
again proving its redeeming efficacy, a power it has always
possessed in the various religions. What Schopenhauer
says of the idea, therefore, I would prefer to apply to
the primordial image, since the idea— as I have elsewhere
observed under ‘ Idea ’—should not be regarded as some-
thing wholly and unconditionally a priori, but also as
something derived and developed from antecedents.
When, therefore, in the following excerpt I am quoting
the words of Schopenhauer, I must ask the reader to
replace the word ‘ idea ’ in the text by ‘ primor dial im a g e ’ :
he will then be able to understand my m eaning : *
“ The idea is never known by the individual as such, but
only by the man who is exalted above all willing and above
all individuality to the pure Subject of knowledge: thus it
is attainable only by the genius, or by the man who has achieved
mainly through the works of genius an elevation of his pure
gift of cognition into a temper akin to genius : it is, therefore,
not absolutely, but only conditionally, communicable, since
the idea conceived and reproduced in an artistic creation, for
instance, only appeals to every man according to his intellectual
powers”, etc.
" The idea is unity split up into multiplicity by virtue of the
temporal and spatial form of our intuitive apprehension.”
"The concept is like an inanimate vehicle, in which the
things one deposits lie side by side, but from which no more
can be taken out than was put in : the idea, on the contrary,
develops within the man who has embraced it conceptions which
in relation to its homonymous concept are new : it is like a living,
self-developing organism endowed with creative force, Wringing
forth something that was never put into it.”
Schopenhauer clearly discerned that the ‘idea’, i.e.
the primordial image according to my definition, cannot
be reached in the way that a concept or ‘ idea ’ is ftatahlfeh-d
(‘idea’ according to Kant corresponds with a “concept
derived from notions”*), but that there per tains to it an
x Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. i, § 49,
* Kant, Critique of Pure Season.
560 DEFINITIONS
element quite foreign to the formulating reason, rather like
Schopenhauer’s “temper akin to genius”, which simply
means a state of feeling. For one only reaches the
primordial image from the idea because of the fact that
the way leading to the idea is carried on over the summit
of the idea into the counter-function, feeling.
The primordial image has advantage over the clarity
of the idea in its vitality. It is a self-living organism,
“ endowed with creative force ” ; for the primordial image
is an inherited organization of psychic energy, a rooted
system, which is not only an expression of the energic
process but also a possibility for its operation. In a sense,
it characterizes the way in which the energic process from
earliest time has always run its unvarying course, while
at the same time enabling a perpetual repetition of
the law-determined course to take place ; since it pro-
vides just that character of apprehension or psychic grasp
of situations which continually yields a further continua-
tion of life. It is, therefore, the necessary counterpart of
instinct , which is an appropriate form of action also pre-
supposing a grasp of the momentary situation that is both
purposeful and suitable. This apprehension of the given
situation is vouchsafed by the a priori existing image.
It represents the practicable formula without which
the apprehension of a new state of affairs would be
impossible.
27. Individual (‘unique-being’): The psychological
individual is characterized by its peculiar, and in certain
respects, unique psychology. The peculiar character of
the individual psyche appears less in its elements than
in its complex formations.
The psychological individual, or individuality, has an
a priori unconscious existence, but it exists consciously
only in so far as a consciousness of its peculiar nature
DEFINITIONS
561
is present, i.e. in so far as there exists a conscious distinct-
iveness from other individuals.
The psychic individuality is also given a priori as a
correlate of the physical individuality, although, as ob-
served, it is at first unconscious, A conscious process of
differentiation ( q.v .) is required to bring the individuality
to consciousness, i.e. to raise it out of the state of identity
with the object. The identity of the individuality with
the object is synonymous with its unconsciousness. There
is no psychological individual present if the individuality
is unconscious, but merely a collective psychology of con-
sciousness. In such a case, the unconscious individuality
appears identical with the object, i.e. projected upon the
object. The object, in consequence, possesses too great
a value and is too powerful a determinant.
28. Individuality : By individuality I understand the
peculiarity and singularity of the individual in every
psychological respect. Everything is individual that is
not collective, everything in fact that pertains only to one
and not to a larger group of individuals. Individuality
can hardly be described as belonging to the psychological
elements, but rather to their peculiar and unique grouping
and combination (v. Individual.)
29. Individuation : The concept of individuation plays
no small rdle in our psychology. In general, it is the
process of forming and specializing the individual nature ;
in particular, it is the development of the psychological
individual as a differentiated being from the general,
collective psychology. Individuation, therefore, is a process
of differentiation, having for its goal the development of
the individual personality.
Individuation is, to this extent, a natural necessity,
inasmuch as its hindrance, by an extensive or actually
562
DEFINITIONS
exclusive levelling to collective standards, involves a definite
injury to individual vital activity. But individuality, both
physically and physiologically, is already given ; hence it
also expresses itself psychologically* An essential check to
the individuality, therefore, involves an artificial mutilation.
It is at once clear that a social group consisting of deformed
individuals cannot for long be a healthy and prosperous
institution ; since only that society which can preserve its
internal union and its collective values, while at the
same time granting the greatest possible freedom to the
individual, has any prospect of enduring vitality. Since
the individual is not only a single, separate being but, by his
very existence, also presupposes a collective relationship,
the process of individuation must clearly lead to a more
intensive and universal collective solidarity, and not to mere
isolation .
The psychological process of individuation is clearly
bound up with the so-called transcendent function (^.z/.), since
it alone can provide that individual line of development
which would be quite unattainable upon the ways dictated
by the collective norm (v. Symbol).
Under no circumstances can individuation be the unique
goal of psychological education. Before individuation can
be taken for a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to
the necessary minimum of collective standards must first
be attained. A plant which is to be brought to the fullest
possible unfolding of its particular character must first of
all be able to grow in the soil wherein it is planted.
Individuation always finds itself more or less in
opposition to the collective norm, since it means a separa-
tion and differentiation from the general, and a building
up of the particular ; not, however, a particularity especially
sought, but one with an a priori foundation in the psyche.
The opposition to the collective norm, however, is only
apparent, since on closer examination the individual stand-
DEFINITIONS
5^3
point is found to be differently orientated, but not
antagonistic to the collective norm. The individual way
can never be actually opposed to the collective norm,
because the opposite to the latter could only be a contrary
norm. But the individual way is never a norm. A norm
arises out of the totality of individual ways, and can have
a right to existence, and a beneficial effect, only when
individual ways, which from time to time have a need to
orientate to a norm, are already in existence. A norm
serves no purpose when it possesses absolute validity. An
actual conflict with the collective norm takes place only
when an individual way is raised to a norm, which, more-
over, is the fundamental aim of extreme individualism.
Such a purpose is, of course, pathological and entirely
opposed to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with
individuation, which, though certainly concerned with the
individual by-path, precisely on that account also needs
the norm for its orientation towards society, and for the
vitally necessary solidarity of the individual with society.
Hence individuation leads to a natural appreciation of
the collective norm, whereas to an exclusively collective
orientation of life the norm becomes increasingly super-
fluous : whereupon real morality goes to pieces. The more
completely a man's life is moulded and shaped by the collective
norm, the greater is his individual immorality .
Individuation is practically the same as the develop-
ment of consciousness out of the original slate of identity
( v . Identity). Hence it signifies an extension of the sphere
of consciousness, an enriching of the conscious psycho-
logical life.
30. Inferior Function: This term is used to denote
the function that remains in arrear in the process of
differentiation. For experience shows that it is hardly
possible — owing to the inclemency of general conditions
564
DEFINITIONS
— for anyone to bring all his psychological functions to
simultaneous development. The very conditions of society
enforce a man to apply himself first and foremost to the
differentiation of that function with which he is either most
gifted by Nature, or which provides his most effective
means for social success. Very frequently, indeed as a
general rule, a man identifies himself more or less com-
pletely with the most favoured, hence the most developed,
function. It is this circumstance which gives rise to
psychological types. But, as a consequence of such a
one-sided process of development, one or more functions
necessarily remain backward in development. Such
functions, therefore, may be fittingly termed ‘inferior*
in the psychological, though not in the psycho-pathological,
sense, since these retarded functions are in no way morbid
but merely backward as compared with the more favoured
function. As a rule, therefore, the inferior function normally
remains conscious, although in neurosis it lapses either
partially or principally into the unconscious. For, inasmuch
as too great a share of the libido is intercepted by the
favoured function, the inferior function undergoes a re-
gressive development, i.e. it returns to its earlier archaic
state, therewith becoming incompatible with the conscious
and favoured function. When a function that should
normally be conscious relapses into the unconscious, the
specific energy adhering to this function is also delivered
over to the unconscious. A natural function, such as feeling,
possesses its own inherent energy : it is a definitely
organized living system, which, under no circumstances,
can be wholly robbed of its energy.
Through the unconscious condition of the inferior
function, its energy-remainder is transferred into the un-
conscious ; whereupon the unconscious becomes unnaturally
activated. The result of such activity is a production of
phantasy at a level corresponding with the archaic, sub<
DEFINITIONS
5*5
merged condition, to which the inferior function has now
sunk. Hence an analytical release of such a function from
the unconscious can take place only by retrieving those
same unconscious phantasy-images which have come to life
through the activation of the unconscious function. The
process of making such phantasies conscious also brings
the inferior function to consciousness, thus providing it
with a new possibility of development.
31. Instinct : When I speak of instinct, whether in this
work or elsewhere, I therewith denote what is commonly
understood by this word : namely, an impulsion towards
certain activities. The impulsion can proceed from an
outer or an inner stimulus, which releases the instinctive
mechanism either psychically, or through organic roots
which lie outside the sphere of psychic causality. Every
psychic phenomenon is instinctive which proceeds from no
cause postulated by the will, but from dynamic impulsion,
irrespective of whether such impulsion has its origin directly
in organic, therefore extra-psychic, sources, or is essentially
conditioned by the energies whose actual release is effected
by the purpose of the will — with the qualification, in the
latter case, that the resulting product exceeds the effect
intended by the will. According to my view, all those
psychic processes over whose energies the conscious has no
disposal come within the concept of instinct 1 . Thus,
according to this view, affects ( q.v .) belong to the instinctive
processes just as much as to the processes of feeling (v.
Feeling). Psychic processes which, under ordinary circum-
stances, are functions of the will (thus entirely subject to
conscious control), can, in abnormal cases, become instinctive
processes through a linking up with unconscious energy.
This phenomenon always occurs whenever the conscious
1 Cf. Jung, Instinct and the Unconscious (Journal 0/ Psychology,
yol x, 1)
DEFINITIONS
566
sphere is restricted either by repressions of incompatible
contents or where, as a result of fatigue, intoxication, or
pathological cerebral processes in general, an “ abaissement
du niveau mentale” (Janet) takes place — where, in a word,
the consdous either does not yet control or no longer
commands the most strongly toned processes.
Those processes, which were once consdous in an
individual but which have gradually become automatized,
1 might term automatic instead of instinctive processes.
Normally, they do not even behave as instincts, since
under normal circumstances they never appear as im-
pulsions. They do that only when they receive a tributary
of energy which is foreign to them.
32. Intellect : I call directed thinking (q.v.), intellect.
33. Introjection : This term was introduced by
Avenarius 1 to correspond with projection. The trans-
veying therewith intended, of a subjective content' into
an object is, however, just as wdl expressed by the
concept of projection. It would, therefore, be as well to
retain the term ‘projection’ for this process. Ferenczi'
has now defined the concept of introjection as the opposite
of ‘projection’, namely, as an ‘indrawing’ of the object
within the subjective circle of interest, while ‘ projection *
means a translation of subjective contents into the object*.
“ Whereas the paranoic expels from his ego emotions which
have become disagreeable, the neurotic helps himself to as
large a portion of the outer world as his ego can
and makes this an object of unconscious phantasies.” The
former mechanism is projection, the latter introjection.
Introjection is a sort of “ diluting process ”, an “ exp an s ion of
the cirde of interest ”. According to Ferenczi, introjection
1 Menschl . Weltbegr., pp. 25 ff.
* Ferenczi, Introjection and Transference (Contributions to Psycho*
Analysis : transl. by E. Jones. Boston : R. Badger).
DEFINITIONS
5*7
is also a normal process. Psychologically, therefore, it is a
process of assimilation (?.».), while projection is a process
of dissimilation. Introjection signifies an adjustment of
the object to the subject, while projection involves a
discrimination of the object from the subject, by means
of a subjective content transveyed into the object.
Introjection is an extraverting process, since for this
adjustment to the object a ‘ feeling-into ’, or possession of,
the object is necessary.
A passive and an active introjection may be discrimin-
ated: to the former belong the transference-processes in
the treatment of the neuroses and, in general, all cases in
which the object exercises an unconditional attraction upon
the subject ; while ‘ feeling-into 5 , regarded as a process of
adaptation, should belong to the latter form.
34. Introversion means a turning inwards of the
libido ( q.v .), whereby a negative relation of subject to
object is expressed. Interest does not move towards the
object, but recedes towards the subject. Everyone whose
attitude is introverted thinks, feels, and acts in a way that
clearly demonstrates that the subject is the chief factor
of motivation while the object at most receives only a
secondary value. Introversion may possess either a more
intellectual or more emotional character, just as it can be
characterized by either intuition or sensation. Introversion
is active, when the subject wills a certain seclusion in face
of the object ; it is passive when the subject is unable to
restore again to the object the libido which is streaming
back from it. When introversion is habitual, one speaks
of an introverted type (v. Type).
35. Intuition (from intueri = to look into or upon) is,
according to my view, a basic psychological function
(v. Function). It is that psychological function which
568
DEFINITIONS
transmits perceptions in an unconscious way . Everything,
whether outer or inner objects or their associations, can
be the object of this perception. Intuition has this peculiar
quality : it is neither sensation, nor feeling, nor intellectual
conclusion, although it may appear in any of these forms.
Through intuition any one content is presented as a
complete whole, without our being able to explain or
discover in what way this content has been arrived at.
Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, irrespective
of the nature of its contents. Like sensation (q.v.) it is an
irrational [q.v.) perceptive function. Its contents, like those
ol sensation, have the character of being given, in contrast
to the ‘derived* or ‘deduced* character of feeling and
thinking contents. Intuitive cognition, therefore, possesses
an intrinsic character of certainty and conviction which
enabled Spinoza to uphold the ‘ scientia intuitiva’ as the
highest form of cognition . 1 Intuition has this quality in
common with sensation, whose physical foundation is the
ground and origin of its certitude. In the same way,
the certainty of intuition depends upon a definite psychic
matter of fact, of whose origin and state of readiness,
however, the subject was quite unconscious.
Intuition appears either in a subjective or an objective
form: the former is a perception of unconscious psychic
facts whose origin is essentially subjective; the latter is
a perception of facts which depend upon subliminal
perceptions of the object and upon the thoughts and
feelings occasioned thereby.
Concrete and abstract forms of intuition may be dis-
tinguished according to the degree of participation on the
part of sensation. Concrete intuition carries perceptions
which are concerned with the actuality of things, while
abstract intuition transmits the perceptions of ideational
associations. Concrete intuition is a reactive process, since
% Similarly Bergson,
DEFINITIONS 569
it follows directly from the given circumstances ; whereas
abstract intuition, like abstract sensation, necessitates a
certain element of direction, an act of will or a purpose.
In common with sensation, intuition is a characteristic
of infantile and primitive psychology. As against the
strength and sudden appearance of sense-impression it
transmits the perception of mythological images, the
precursors of ideas (q.v.).
Intuition maintains a compensatory function to sensa-
tion, and, like sensation, it is the maternal soil from which
thinking and feeling are developed in the form of rational
functions. Intuition is an irrational function, notwith-
standing the fact that many intuitions may subsequently
be split up into their component elements, whereby their
origin and appearance can also be made to harmonize with
the laws of reason. Everyone whose general attitude is
orientated by the principle of intuition, i.e. perception by way
of the unconscious, belongs to the intuitive type 1 {v. Type),
According to the manner in which intuition is employed,
whether directed within in the service of cognition and
inner perception or without in the service of action and
accomplishment, the introverted and extraverted intuitive
types can be differentiated.
In abnormal cases a well-marked coalescence with,
and an equally great determination by, the contents of
the collective unconscious declares itself: this may give
the intuitive type an extremely irrational and unintel-
ligible appearance.
36. Irrational: As I make use of this term it does
not denote something contrary to reason , but something
outside the province of reason, whose essence, therefore,
is not established by reason.
1 The merit of having discovered the existence of this type is duj
to Miss M. Moltzer.
T*
570
DEFINITIONS
Elementary facts belong to this category, eg. that the
earth has a moon, that chlorine is an element, that the
greatest density of water is found to be 4.0 centigrade.
An accident is also irrational in spite of the fact that it
may sustain a subsequent rational explanation.
The irrational is a factor of existence which may
certainly be pushed back indefinitely by an increasingly
elaborate and complicated rational explanation, but in so
doing the explanation finally becomes so extravagant and
overdone that it passes comprehension, thus reaching the
limits of rational thought long before it can ever span
the whole world with the laws of reason. A completely
rational explanation of an actually existing object (not
one that is merely postulated) is a Utopian ideal. Only
an object that has been postulated can also be completely
explained on rational grounds, since it has never contained
anything beyond what was postulated by rational thinking.
Empirical science also postulates rationally limited objects,
since its deliberate exclusion of the accidental allows no
consideration of the real object as a whole ; hence
empirical observation is always limited to that same
portion of the object which has been selected for rational
consideration. Thus, both thinking and feeling as directed
functions are rational. When these functions are concerned
not with a rationally determined choice of objects, or with
the qualities and relations of objects, but with the incidental
perceptions which the real object never lacks, they at once
lose the quality of direction, and therewith something of
their rational character, because they accept the accidental.
They begin to be irrational. That thinking or feeling
which is directed according to accidental perceptions, and
is therefore irrational, is either intuitive or sensational .
Both intuition and sensation are psychological functions
which achieve their functional fulfilment in the absolute
perception of occurrences in general. Hence, in accordance
DEFINITIONS
57i
with their nature, their attitude must be set towards every
possibility and what is absolutely accidental; they must,
therefore, entirely forgo rational direction. Accordingly
I term them irrational functions, in contrast to thinking
and feeling, which reach perfection only when in complete
accord with the laws of reason.
Although the irrational, as such, can never become the
object of a science, nevertheless for a practical psychology
it is of the greatest importance that the irrational factor
should be correctly appraised. For practical psychology
stirs up many problems that altogether elude the rational
solution and can be settled only irrationally, i.e. they can
be solved only in a way that has no correspondence with
the laws of reason. An exclusive presumption or ex-
pectation that for every conflict there must also exist a
possibility of rational adjustment may well prove an in-
surmountable obstacle to a real solution of an irrational
character, (v. Rational).
37. Libido: In my view, this concept is synonymous
with psychic energy 1 . Psychic energy is the intensity of
the psychic process — its psychological value. By this I do
not mean to imply any imparted value, whether moral,
aesthetic, or intellectual ; the psychological value is simply
conditioned by its determining power, which is manifested
in definite psychic operations (‘ effects *). Neither do I
understand libido as a psychic force , a misunderstanding
that has led many critics astray. I do not hypostasize
the concept of energy, but employ it as a concept denoting
intensity or value. The question as to whether or no a
specific psychic force exists has nothing to do with the
concept of libido.
Frequently I employ the expression libido promiscuously
1 Jung, The Psychology of the Unconscious , p. 127. Idem , The
Conception and the Genetic Theory of Libido , Pt. ii, ch. 2, p. 139.
57 *
DEFINITIONS
with ‘energy’. My justification for calling psychic energy
libido has been fully gone into in the works referred to
in the footnote.
38. The Objective Plane: When I speak of inter-
pretation upon the objective plane, I am referring to that
view of a dream or phantasy by which the persons or
conditions appearing therein are referred to objectively
real persons or conditions ; whereas I speak of the sub-
jective plane (q,v.) when the persons and conditions appear-
ing in a dream are referred exclusively to subjective
elements. The Freudian view of the dream moves almost
exclusively upon the objective level, inasmuch as dream-
wishes are interpreted as referring to real objects, or are
related to sexual processes which fall within the physio-
logical, and therefore extra-psychological, sphere.
39. Orientation: This term is used to denote the
general principle of an attitude (< q.v .). Every attitude is
orientated by a certain point-of-view, no matter whether
that point-of-view be conscious or unconscious. A so-
called power-attitude is orientated by the view-point of
ego-power exerted against oppressive influences and con-
ditions. A thinking attitude is orientated by the principle
of logic as its supreme law ; a sensational attitude by the
sensuous perception of given facts.
40. “ Participation Mystique ” : This term originates
with L6vy-Bruhl \ It connotes a peculiar kind of psycho-
logical connection with the object wherein the subject is
unstble to differentiate himself clearly from the object to
which he is bound by an immediate relation that can only
be described as partial identity. This identity is based
upon an a priori one-ness of subject and object “ Partid-
1 L6vy-Bruhl, Les fonctions mentales dans les socittts inUrieures
(Paris, 1912).
DEFINITIONS
573
pation mystique”, therefore, is a vestigial remainder of this
primordial condition. It does not apply to the whole
subject-object relation, but only to certain cases in which
the phenomenon of this peculiar relatedness appears. It
is, of course, a phenomenon that is best observed among
the primitives; but it occurs not at all infrequently
among civilized men, although not with the same range
or intensity. Among civilized peoples it usually happens
between persons — and only seldom between a person and
thing. In the former case it is a so-called state of trans-
ference, in which the object (as a general rule) obtains a
sort of magical, i.e. unconditional, influence over the subject.
In the latter case it is a question of a similar influence
on the part of a thing, or else a kind of identification with
a thing or the idea of a thing.
41. Phantasy : By phantasy I understand two different
things, namely, (i) phantasm and ( 2 ) Imaginative activity.
In my writings the context always shows which of these
meanings is intended. When the term is used to denote
phantasm , , it represents a complex that is distinguished
from other complexes by the fact that it corresponds with
no actual external state of affairs. Although a phantasm
may originally be based upon the memory-images of actual
experiences, its content corresponds with no external reality;
it is merely the output of the creative psychic activity,
a manifestation or product of the combination of psychic
elements. In so far as psychic energy can be submitted to
voluntary direction, phantasy may also be consciously and
deliberately produced, as a whole or at least in part. In
the former case, it is merely a combination of conscious
elements. But such a case is only an artificial experi-
ment of purely theoretical importance. In actual every-
day psychological experience, phantasy is either released
by an expectant, intuitive attitude, or appears as an
574
DEFINITIONS
involuntary irruption of unconscious contents into con-
sciousness.
We must differentiate between active and passive
phantasy. Active phantasies are called forth by intuition,
i.e. by an attitude directed to the perception of unconscious
contents in which the libido immediately invests all the
elements emerging from the unconscious, and, by means of
association with parallel material, brings them to definition
and plastic form. Passive phantasies without any antecedent
or accompanying intuitive attitude appear from the outset
in plastic form in the presence of a wholly passive attitude
on the part of the cognizing subject Such phantasies
belong to the category of psychic “ automatismes ” (J anet).
Naturally these latter can occur only as the result of a
relative dissociation of the psyche, since their occurrence
presupposes the withdrawal of an essential sum of energy
from conscious control with a corresponding activation of
unconscious material. Thus the vision of Saul presupposes
an unconscious acceptance of Christianity, though the fact
had escaped his conscious insight
It is probable that passive phantasy always springs from
an unconscious process antithetically related to conscious-
ness, but one which assembles approximately the same
amount of energy as the conscious attitude, whence also
its capacity for breaking through the latter's resistance.
Active phantasy, on the contrary, owes its existence
not merely to a onesided, intensive, and antithetic uncon-
scious process, but just as much to the propensity of the
conscious attitude for taking up the indications or fragments
of relatively lightly-toned unconscious associations, and
developing them into complete plasticity by association
with parallel elements. In the case of active phantasy,
then, it is not necessarily a question of a dissociated
psychic state, but rather of a positive participation of
consciousness.
DEFINITIONS
575
Whereas the passive form of phantasy not infrequently
bears the stamp of morbidity or at least some trace of
abnormality, active phantasy belongs to the highest form
of psychic activity. For here, in a converging stream,
flow the conscious and unconscious personality of the
subject into a common and reconciling product A
phantasy thus framed may be the supreme expression
of the unity of an individual; it may even create the
individual by the consummate expression of its unity.
(Cf. Schiller's concept of the “aesthetic disposition”).
As a general rule, passive phantasy is never the expression
of an individuality that has achieved unity, since, as
already observed, it presupposes a considerable degree
of dissociation, which in its turn can result only from an
equally strong opposition between the conscious and the
unconscious. Hence the phantasy that breaks through
into consciousness as the result of such a state, can never
be the perfected expression of a united individuality, but
only the prevailing standpoint of the unconscious person-
ality. The life of St Paul is a good example of this : his
conversion to the Christian faith corresponded with an
acceptance of the hitherto unconscious standpoint and a
repression of his previous anti-Christian point of view
which latter soon became noticeable in his hysterical fits.
Hence, passive phantasy must always require a conscious
criticism , if it is not to substantiate the one-sided stand-
point of the unconscious antithesis. Whereas active
phantasy, as the product, on the one hand of a conscious
attitude which is not opposed to the unconscious, and, on
the other, of unconscious processes which do not maintain
an antithetic so much as a compensatory relation to
consciousness, does not require this criticism, but merely
understanding .
As with the dream (which is merely passive phantasy)
a manifest and a latent meaning must be distinguished also
57 *
DEFINITIONS
in phantasy. The former results from the immediate
perception of the phantasy-image, and the immediate
statement of the complex represented by the phantasy.
Frequently, however, the manifest meaning hardly deserves
the name, although it is always far more developed in
phaptasy than in the dream ; probably this arises from the
fact that the dream-phantasy usually requires no particular
energy wherewith to make an effective opposition to the
feeble resistance of the sleeping consciousness; whence
it also follows that few antagonistic and only rather
slight compensatory tendencies can obtain representation.
Waking phantasy, on the other hand, must command a
considerable sum of energy in order to overcome the
inhibition proceeding from the conscious attitude.
Hence, for this to take place, the unconscious antithesis
must already be very important before its entrance into
consciousness can become possible. If it consisted only
in vague and hardly seizable indications, it would nevei
be able so to divert conscious attention (conscious libido)
upon itself as effectually to interrupt the associated con-
tinuity of consciousness. Hence the unconscious content
is dependent upon a very strong inner connection, which
reveals itself in a manifest meaning. The manifest meaning
always has the character of a plastic and concrete process,
which, on account of its objective unreality, can never
satisfy the conscious demand for understanding. Hence
another signification, in other words, an interpretation , or
latent meaning, has to be sought. Although the existence
of a latent meaning of phantasy is by no means certain,
and although nothing stands in the way of an eventual
challenge of the whole possibility of a latent meaning, yet
the demand for a satisfying understanding is motive enough
for a thorough-going investigation. This- investigation of
the latent meaning may be purely causal , inquiring into
the psychological causes of the existence of the phantasy.
DEFINITIONS
577
Such an interrogation leads, on the one hand, to the more
remote causes of the phantasy in the distant past, and. on
the other, to the substantiation of the instinctive forces
which, from the energic standpoint, must be made account-
able for the existence of the phantasy. As is well known,
Freud has made a specially intensive elaboration of this
method. It is this method of interpretation to which I
have applied the term reductive. The justification of a
reductive view is immediately visible ; it is also thoroughly
intelligible that this method of interpreting psychological
realities contains something which for a certain tempera-
ment is sufficiently satisfying to obviate any further claims
for deeper understanding. If a man has uttered a cry for
help, such a fact is adequately and satisfactorily explained
when it is shown that the man in question was in instant
danger of life. If a man dreams of a lavishly-spread table,
and it is shown that he went to bed hungry, a satisfactory
explanation of his dream is provided. Or supposing a man
who has repressed his sexuality, in the manner of a medieval
saint, has sexual phantasies, this fact is sufficiently explained
by a reduction to his repressed sexuality.
If, however, we were to explain the vision of St Peter
by dwelling upon the fact that he, “being an-hungered ”,
had received an invitation from the unconscious to eat
animals that were “unclean”, or that the eating of the
unclean beasts merely signified the fulfilment of a forbidden
desire — with such an explanation we would still go empty
away. Neither would our demand find any fuller satis-
faction if, for instance, we were to trace the vision of Saul
to his repressed envy of the r61e played by Christ among
his fellow-countrymen which brought about his identifica-
tion with Christ. Both explanations may contain some
glimmering of truth, yet they stand in no sort of relation
to the real psychology of the two apostles, conditioned
as this was by the history and atmosphere of that time.
578 DEFINITIONS
Such an explanation is both too simple arid too cheap.
We cannot discuss the history of the world as though
it were a problem of physiology or a mere personal
‘chronique scandaleuse \ That would be altogether too
limited a standpoint. Hence we are compelled very con-
siderably to extend our conception of the latent meaning
of phantasy. First of all in its causal aspect, for the
psychology of the individual can never be exhaustively
explained from himself : a clear recognition is also needed
of the way in which his individual psychology is con-
ditioned by contemporary history and circumstances. It
is not merely a physiological, biological, or personal
problem, but also a question of contemporary history.
In fine, no psychological fact can ever be exhaustively
explained from its causality alone, since, as a living
phenomenon, it is always indissolubly bound up with the
continuity of the vital process, so that on the one side
it is always something that is, and on the other it is
also becoming, and therefore always creative. The psycho-
logical moment is Janus-faced — it looks both backwards
and forwards. Because it is becoming, it also prepares
for the future event. Were this not so, intentions, aims,
the setting-up of goals, the forecasting or divining of the
future would be psychological impossibilities. If, when a
man expresses an opinion, we merely relate this circum-
stance to the fact that at some previous time someone
else has also expressed a view, such an explanation is,
practically, quite inadequate; for its real understanding,
not merely do we wish to know the cause of his action
but also what he intends by it, what are his aims and
purposes, what does he hope to achieve by it. And
usually, when we also know that, we are willing to rest
satisfied. In everyday life, we immediately and quite
instinctively insert a purposive standpoint into the ex-
planation; indeed, very often we appraise the purposive
DEFINITIONS
579
point-of-view as the decisive one, completely overlooking
the strictly causal motive; clearly, in instinctive recogni-
tion of the essentially creative factor of the psyche.
If we so act in everyday experience, a scientific psych-
ology must also take this circumstance into account,
and not rely exclusively upon the strictly causal stand-
point originally taken over from natural science ; for it
also has to consider the purposive nature of the psychic
product.
When we find everyday experience establishing the
purposive orientation of the conscious content beyond
any sort of doubt, we have absolutely no grounds to
assume, in the absence of experience to the contrary, that
this may not also be the case with the content of the
unconscious. My experience gives me no reason at all to
dispute the purposive orientation of unconscious contents ;
on the contrary, the cases in which a satisfactory in-
terpretation could alone be attained through the intro-
duction of the purposive standpoint are in the majority.
Suppose, for example, we were again to consider the
vision of Saul, but this time from the angle of the Pauline
world mission, and were now to reach the conclusion that
Saul, though a conscious persecutor of Christians, had
unconsciously adopted the Christian standpoint, that he
was finally brought to avow it by the increasing pre-
dominance and final irruption of the unconscious stand-
point, and that his unconscious personality was constantly
striving towards this goal in an instinctive apprehension
of the necessity and importance of such an act. To me
this seems a more adequate explanation of the real
significance of the event than a reductive interpretation
to personal motives, albeit these latter doubtless co-
operated in one form or another, since the ‘ all-too-human ’
is never lacking. Similarly, the indication given in the
Acts of the Apostles of a purposive interpretation of the
DEFINITIONS
580
vision of St Peter is far more satisfying than a merely
physiological and personal conjecture.
To sum up, we may say that phantasy needs to be
understood both causally as well as purposively. With
the causal explanation it appears as a symptom of a
physiological or personal condition, the resultant of previous
occurrences ; whereas, in the purposive interpretation,
phantasy appears as a symbol, which seeks with the help
of existing material a clear and definite goal ; it strives,
as it were, to distinguish or lay hold of a certain line for
the future psychological development. Active phantasy
being the principal attribute of the artistic mentality,
the artist is not merely a representer : he is also a creator,
hence essentially an educator , since his works have the
value of symbols that trace out the line of future develop-
ment.
Whether the actual social validity of the symbol is
more general or more restricted depends upon the quality
or vital capacity of the creative individuality. The more
abnormal the individual, i.e . the less his general fitness
for life, the more limited will be the common social value
of the symbols he produces, although their value may be
absolute for the individuality in question. One has no
right to dispute the existence of the latent meaning of
phantasy, unless we also cling to the view that the general
Nature-process contains no satisfying meaning. But
natural science has developed the meaning of the Nature-
process into the form of natural laws. These, admittedly,
are human hypotheses advanced in explanation of the
Nature-process. But, only in so far as we have ascertained
that the proposed law actually coincides with the objective
process, are we justified in speaking of a meaning of the
natural occurrence. Just so far, therefore, as we have
succeeded in demonstrating a law-abiding principle in
phantasy, are we also justified in speaking of a meaning
DEFINITIONS
58i
of the same. But the disclosed meaning is satisfying, or
in other words the demonstrated regularity deserves the
name, only when it adequately renders the nature of
phantasy.
There is a law-abiding regularity in the Nature-process,
and also a regularity of the Nature-process. It is certainly
law-determined and regular that one dreams when one
sleeps; but there is no sort of law-determined* principle
that affirms anything about the nature of the dream. Its
nature is a mere condition of the dream. The demonstra-
tion of a physiological source of the phantasy is a mere
condition of its existence, not a law of its nature. The
law of phantasy as a psychological phenomenon can only
be a psychological law.
We now come to the second point of our explanation .
of the concept of phantasy, viz. imaginative activity.
Imagination is the reproductive, or creative, activity
of the mind generally, though not a special faculty, since
it may come into play in all the basic forms of psychic
activity, whether thinking, feeling, sensation, or intuition.
Phantasy as imaginative activity is, in my view, simply the
direct expression of psychic vital activity: it is energy
merely appearing in consciousness in the form of images
or contents, just as physical energy also reveals itself as
a definite physical state wherein sense organs are stimulated
in physical ways. For as every physical state — from the
energic standpoint — is merely a dynamic system, so, too,
a psychic content — regarded energically — is merely a
dynamic system appearing in consciousness. Hence from
this standpoint one may affirm that phantasy in the form
of phantasm is merely a definite sum of libido which
cannot appear in consciousness in any other way than in
the form of an image. Phantasm is an ‘ id£e-force \
Phantasy as imaginative activity is identical with the
course ot the energic psychic process.
58a DEFINITIONS
42. Power-complex: I occasionally use this term as
denoting the total complex of all those ideas and strivings
whose tendency it is to range the ego above other in-
fluences, thus subordinating all such influences to the ego,
quite irrespective of whether they have their source in men
and objective conditions, or spring from one’s own sub-
jective impulses, feelings, and thoughts.
43. Projection signifies the transveying of a subjective
process into an object. It is the opposite of introjection
(y.r.). Accordingly, projection is a process of dissimilation
wherein a subjective content is estranged from the subject
and, in a sense, incorporated in the object. There are
painful, incompatible contents of which the subject un-
burdens himself by projection, just as there are also
positive values which for some reason are uncongenial to
the subject; as, for instance, the consequences of self-
depreciation. Projection is based upon the archaic
identity (q.v.) of subject and object, but the term is used
only when the necessity has already arisen for resolving
the identity with the object. This necessity arises when
the identity is disturbing, i.e. when, through the absence
of the projected content, the process of adaptation is
materially prejudiced, so that the restoration of the pro-
jected content becomes desirable to the subject From
this moment the hitherto partial identity maintains the
character of projection. This expression, therefore, denotes
a state of identity which has become noticeable, and, there-
fore, the object of criticism, whether it be the self-criticism
of the subject or the objective criticism of another.
We may discriminate between passive and active pro-
jection. The former is the customary form of every patho-
logical and many normal projections; it springs from no
purpose and is a purely automatic occurrence. The latter
form is an essential constituent of the act of * feeting-into ’
DEFINITIONS
583
Feeling-into (q.v.), as a whole, is a process of introjection,
since it serves to bring the object into an intimate relation
with the subject. In order to establish this relation, the
subject detaches a content (a feeling, for instance) from
himself; he then transveys it into, therewith animating,
the object, which he thus relates to the subjective sphere.
The active form of projection, however, is also an act
of judgment which aims at a separation of subject and
object. In this case a subjective judgment is detached
from the subject as a valid statement of the case, and is
transveyed into the object; by so doing the subject dis-
tinguishes himself from the object Accordingly, pro-
jection is a process of introversion, since, in contrast to
introjection, it leads not to a linking-up and assimilation
but to a differentiation and separation of subject from
object Hence it plays a leading part in paranoia, which
usually ends in a total isolation of the subject.
44. Rational: The rational is the reasonable, that
which accords with reason. I conceive reason as an
attitude whose principle is to shape thought, feeling, and
action in accordance with objective values. Objective
values are established by the average experience of
external facts on the one hand, and of inner psychological
facts on the other. Such experiences, however, could
represent no objective * value ', if ‘ valued ’ as such by the
subject ; for this woulci already amount to an act’ of reason.
But the reasoning attitude, which permits us to declare as
valid objective values in general, is not the work of the
individual subject, but the product of human history.
Most objective values — and reason itself among them —
— are firmly established complexes handed down to us
through the ages, to the organization of which countless
generations have laboured with the same necessity with
which the nature of the living organism, in general, reacts
DEFINITIONS
5®4
to the average and constantly recurring conditions of the
environment, confronting them with corresponding function-
complexes — as, for instance, the eye, which so perfectly
corresponds with the nature of light. We might, therefore,
speak of a pre-existing, metaphysical world-reason, if, as
Schopenhauer has already pointed out, the reaction of the
living organism that corresponds with average external
influence were not the indispensable condition of its
existence. Human reason, therefore, is merely the ex-
pression of human adaptability to the average occurrence
which has gradually become deposited in solidly organized
complexes, constituting our objective values. Thus the
laws of reason are those laws which rule and designate
the average * correct ’ or adapted attitude. Everything is
rational which harmonizes with these laws, and everything
irrational (j.v.) which contravenes them.
Thinking and feeling are rational functions in so far
as they are decisively influenced by the motive of
reflection. They attain their fullest significance when in
fullest possible accord with the laws of reason. The
irrational functions, on the contrary, are such as aim at
pure perception, e.g. intuition and sensation ; because, as
far as possible, they are forced to dispense with the rational
(which pre-supposes the exclusion of everything that is
outside reason) in order to be able to reach . the most
complete perception of the whole course of events.
45. Reductive (* leading back ’) : I employ this expres-
sion to denote that method of psychological interpretation
which regards the unconscious product not from the
symbolic point of view, but merely as a semiotic expression,
a sort of sign or symptom of an underlying process.
Accordingly, the reductive method treats the unconscious
product in the sense of a leading-back to the elements
and basic processes, irrespective of whether such products
DEFINITIONS
5*5
are reminiscences of actual events, or whether they arise
from elementary processes affecting the psyche. Hence,
the reductive method is orientated backwards (in contrast
to the constructive method ; j.v.), whether in the historical
sense or in the merely figurative sense of a tracing back
of complex and differentiated factors to the general and
elementary. The methods both of Freud and of Adler
are reductive, since in both cases there is a reduction to
elementary processes either of wishing or striving, which
in the last resort are infantile or primitive. Hence the
unconscious product necessarily acquires the value of a
merely figurative or unreal expression, for which the term
* symbol * (q.v.) is really not applicable.
The effect of reduction as regards the real significance
of the unconscious product is disintegrating, since it is
either traced back to its historical antecedents, and so
robbed of its intrinsic significance, or it is once again
reintegrated into the same elementary process from which
it arose.
46. Self: — v. Ego.
47. Sensation: According to my conception, this is
one of the basic psychological functions (v. Function).
Wundt also reckons sensation among the elementary
psychic phenomena 1 .
Sensation, or sensing, is that psychological function
which transmits a physical stimulus to perception. It is,
therefore, identical with perception. Sensation must be
strictly distinguished from feeling, since the latter is an
entirely different process, although it may, for instance,
be associated with sensation as ‘feeling-tone*. Sensation
1 For the history of the concept of sensation compare :
Wundt, GrundxUge der physiologischen Psychologie, i, pp. 350 ff.
Dessoir, Geschichte dev neuem deutschen Psychologie,
Villa, Evnleitwng in die Psychologie der Gegenwart,
y. Hartmann, DU modems Psychologie ,
586
DEFINITIONS
is related not only to the outer stimuli, but also to the
inner, i.e . to changes in the internal organs.
Primarily, therefore, sensation is sense-perception, i.e.
perception transmitted via the sense organs and ‘ bodily
senses’ (kinaesthetic, vaso-motor sensation, etc.). On the
one hand, it is an element of presentation, since it transmits
to the presenting function the perceived image of the outer
object; on the other hand, it is an element of feeling,
because through the perception of bodily changes it lends
the character of affect to feeling, (v. Affect). Because
sensation transmits physical changes to consciousness, it
also represents the physiological impulse. But it is not
identical with it, since it is merely a perceptive function.
A distinction must be made between sensuous, or
concrete, and abstract sensation. The former includes
the forms above alluded to, whereas the latter designates
an abstracted kind of sensation, i.e. a sensation that is
separated from other psychological elements. For concrete
sensation never appears as ‘ pure ’ sensation, but is always
mixed up with presentations, feelings, and thoughts.
Abstract sensation, on the contrary, represents a differ-
entiated kind of perception which might be termed
‘ aesthetic * in so far as it follows its own principle and is
as equally detached from every admixture of the differences
of the perceived object as from the subjective admixture
of feeling and thought, thus raising itself to a degree of
purity which is never attained by concrete sensation. The
concrete sensation of a flower, for instance, transmits not
only the perception of the flower itself, but also an image
of the stem, leaves, habitat, etc. It is also directly mingled
with the feelings of pleasure or dislike which the sight of it
provokes, or with the scent-perceptions simultaneously ex-
cited, or with thoughts concerning its botanical classification.
Abstract sensation, on the other hand, immediately
picks out the most salient sensuous attribute of the flower,
DEFINITIONS
5*7
as for instance its brilliant redness, and makes it the sole
or at least the principal content of consciousness, entirely
detached from all the other admixtures alluded to above.
Abstract sensation is mainly suited to the artist Like
every abstraction, it is a product of the differentiation of
function : hence there is nothing primordial about it The
primordial form of the function is always concrete, i.e .
blended {v. Archaism, and Concretism). Concrete sensa-
tion as such is a reactive phenomenon, while abstract
sensation, like every abstraction, is always linked up with
the will, i.e. the element of direction. The will that is
directed towards the abstraction of sensation is both the
expression and the activity of the aesthetic sensational attitude .
Sensation is a prominent characteristic both in the
child and the primitive, in so far as it always predominates
over thinking and feeling, though not necessarily over
intuition. For I regard sensation as conscious, and in-
tuition as unconscious, perception. For me, sensation
and intuition represent a pair of opposites, or two mutually
compensating functions, like thinking and feeling. Think-
ing and feeling as independent functions are developed,
both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, from sensation
(and equally, of course, from intuition as the necessary
counterpart of sensation).
In so far as sensation is an elementary phenomenon,
it is something absolutely given, something that, in con-
trast to thinking and feeling, is not subject to the laws of
reason. I therefore term it an irrational (q.v.) function,
although reason contrives to assimilate a great number of
sensations into rational associations.
A man whose whole attitude is orientated by the prin-
ciple of sensation belongs to the sensation type (v. Types).
Normal sensations are proportionate, i.e . their value
approximately corresponds with the intensity of the
physical stimulus. Pathological sensations are dispro-
588
DEFINITIONS
portionate, i.e. either abnormally weak or abnormally
strong : in the former case they are inhibited, in the latter
exaggerated. The inhibition is the result of the pre-
dominance of another function ; the exaggeration proceeds
from an abnormal amalgamation with another function,
e.g. a blending with a still undifferentiated feeling or
thinking function. In such a case, the exaggeration of
sensation ceases as soon as the function with which
sensation is fused is differentiated in its own right.
The psychology of the neuroses yields extremely
illuminating examples of this, where, for instance, a strong
sexualization (Freud) of other functions very often prevails,
i.e. a blending of sexual sensation with other functions.
48. Soul (anitna) : I have found sufficient cause, in my
investigations into the structure of the unconscious, to
make a conceptual distinction between the soul and the
psyche . By the psyche I understand the totality of all
the psychic processes, both conscious as well as uncon-
scious ; whereas by soul, I understand a definitely demar-
cated function-complex that is best characterized as a
c personality \ In order to describe more exactly what
I mean by this, I must introduce still remoter points
of view — such, in particular, as the phenomena of
somnambulism, of character-duplication, of dissociation of
personality, the investigation of which is primarily due to
French research, and which has enabled us to recognize
the possibility of a plurality of personalities in one and
the same individual \
1 Azam, Hypnotisms — Double Conscience. Paris, 1887.
Morton Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality. 1906.
■Land m a nn , Die Mehrheit geistiger Persdnlichkeiten in einem Indi -
viduum. 1894.
Ribot, Die Persdnlichheit . 1894.
Flournoy, Des Indes A la pianite Mars. 1900.
Jung. On the Psychology and Pathology of so-called Occult Phenomena
(Collected Papers , 2ndedn.)
DEFINITIONS
589
It is at once evident that such a plurality of person-
alities can never appear in a normal individual ; but the
possibility of a dissociation of personality which these
cases represent must also exist, at least potentially, within
the range of normality. And, as a matter of fact, a
moderately acute psychological observation can succeed
without much difficulty in proving at least the traces of
character-splitting in the normal individual. For example,
we have only to observe a man rather closely under
varying circumstances, to discover that a transition from
one milieu to another brings about a striking alteration in
his personality, whereby a sharply-outlined and distinctly
changed character emerges. The proverbial expression
‘angel abroad, and devil at home’ is a formulation of the
phenomenon of character-splitting derived from everyday
experience. A definite milieu demands a definite attitude.
Corresponding with the duration or frequency with which
such a milieu-attitude is demanded, the more or less
habitual it becomes. Great numbers of men of the
educated classes are obliged to move in two, for the most
part totally different, milieux— viz. in the family and
domestic circle and in the world of affairs. These two
totally different environments demand two totally different
attitudes, which, in proportion to the degree of identifica-
tion (q.v.) of the ego with the momentary attitude, produce
a duplication of character. In accordance with social
conditions and necessities, the social character is orientated,
on the one hand by the expectations or obligations of
the social milieu, and on the other by the social aimc
and efforts of the subject. The domestic character is,
as a rule, more the product of the subject’s laissez-aller
indolence and emotional demands; whence it frequently
happens that men who in public life are extremely
energetic, bold, obstinate, wilful, and inconsiderate appear
good-natured, mild, accommodating, even weak, when at
59 ®
DEFINITIONS
home within the sphere of domesticity. Which, then, is
the true character, the real personality ? This is a question
it is often impossible to answer.
This brief consideration will show that, even in the
normal individual, character-splitting is by no means an
impossibility. We are, therefore, perfectly justified in
treating the question of dissociation of personality also as
a problem of normal psychology. According to my view
then — to pursue the discussion — the above question should
be met with a frank avowal that such a man has no real
character at all, i.e. he is not individual (q.v.) but collective
(q.v.), i.e. he corresponds with general circumstances and
expectations. Were he an individual, he would have but
one and the same character with every variation of attitude.
It would not be identical with the momentary attitude,
neither could it nor would it prevent his individuality from
finding expression in one state just as clearly as in another.
He is an individual, of course, like every being; but an
unconscious one. Through his more or less complete
identification with the attitude of the moment, he at least
deceives others, and also often himself, as to his real
character. He puts on a mask, which he knows corres-
ponds with his conscious intentions, while it also meets
with the requirements and opinions of his environment,
so that first one motive then the other is in the ascendant.
This mask, viz. the ad hoc adopted attitude, I have called
the persona , 1 which was the designation given to the maalr
worn by the actors of antiquity. A man who is identified
with this mask I would call “personal” (as opposed to
“individual”).
Both the attitudes of the case considered above are
collective personalities, which may be simply summed up
under the name “ persona ” or " personae ”. I have already
1 Jung. The Conception of the Unconscious (Collected Papers,
2nd edn., p. 457).
DEFINITIONS
.591
suggested above that the real individuality is different from
both. Thus, the persona is a function-complex which has
come into existence for reasons of adaptation or necessary
convenience, but by no means is it identical with the indivi-
duality. The function-complex of the persona is exclusively
concerned with the relation to the object.
The relation of the individual to the outer object must
be sharply distinguished from the relation to the subject.
By the subject I mean those vague, dim stirrings, feelings,
thoughts, and sensations which have no demonstrable flow
towards the object from the continuity of conscious experi-
ence, but well up like a disturbing, inhibiting, or at times
beneficent, influence from the dark inner depths, from the
background and underground of consciousness which, in
their totality, constitute one’s perception of the unconscious
life. The subject, conceived as the ‘ inner ’ object, is the
unconscious. There is a relation to the inner object, viz.
an inner attitude, just as there is a relation to the outer
object, viz. an outer attitude. It is quite intelligible that
this inner attitude, by reason of its extremely intimate and
inaccessible nature, is far less widely known than the outer
attitude, which is immediately perceived by everyone.
Nevertheless, the task of making a concept of this inner
attitude does not seem to me impossible. All those so-
called accidental inhibitions, fancies, moods, vague feelings,
and fragments of phantasy, which occasionally harass and
disturb the accomplishment of concentrated work, not to
mention the repose of the most normal of men, and which
evoke rational explanations either in the form of physical
causes or reasons of like nature, usually have their origin,
not in the reasons ascribed to them by consciousness, but
in the perceptions of unconscious processes, which, in fact,
they are. Among such phenomena, dreams also naturally
belong : these are admittedly liable to be accounted for bv
such external and superficial causes as indigestion, sleeping
59 *
DEFINITIONS
on one’s back, and the like, in spite of the fact that such
explanations never withstand a searching criticism. The
attitude of individual men to these things is extremely
variable. One man will not allow himself to be disturbed
in the smallest degree by his inner processes — he can, as it
were, ignore them entirely ; while another is in the highest
degree subject to them : at the first waking-moment some
phantasy or other, or a disagreeable feeling, spoils his
temper for the whole day ; a vague, unpleasant sensation
suggests the idea of a secret malady, or a dream leaves him
with a gloomy foreboding, although in other ways he is by
no means superstitious. To others, again, these unconscious
stirrings have only a very episodic access, or only a certain
category of them come to the surface. For one man,
perhaps, they have never yet appeared to consciousness
as anything worth thinking about, while for another they
are a problem of daily brooding. The one values them
physiologically, or ascribes them to the conduct of his
neighbours ; another finds in them a religious revelation.
These entirely different ways of dealing with the
stirrings of the unconscious are just as habitual as the
attitudes to the outer object. The inner attitude, there-
fore, corresponds with just as definite a function-complex
as the outer attitude. Those cases in which the inner
psychic processes appear to be entirely overlooked are
lacking a typical inner attitude just as little as those
who constantly overlook the outer object and the reality
of facts lack a typical outer attitude. The persona of
these latter, by no means infrequent, cases has the character
of unrelatedness, or at times even a blind inconsiderateness,
which frequently yields only to the harshest blows of fate.
Not seldom, it is just those individuals whose persona
is characterized by a rigid inconsiderateness and absence
of relations who possess an attitude to the unconscious
processes which suggests a character of extreme suscepti-
DEFINITIONS
393
bility. As they are inflexible and inaccessible outwardly,
so are they weak, flaccid, and determinable in relation to
their inner processes. In such cases, therefore, the inner
attitude corresponds with an inner personality diametri-
cally opposed and different from the outer. I know a
man, for instance, who without pity blindly destroyed the
happiness of those nearest to him, and yet he would
interrupt his journey when travelling on important business
just to enjoy the beauty of a forest scene glimpsed from
the carriage window. Cases of this kind are doubtless
familiar to everyone ; it is needless therefore to enumerate
further examples. With the same justification as daily
experience furnishes us for speaking of an outer personality
are we also justified in assuming the existence of an inner
personality. The inner personality is the manner of one’s
behaviour towards the inner psychic processes; it is the
inner attitude, the character, that is turned towards the
unconscious. I term the outer attitude, or outer character,
the persona , the inner attitude I term the anima , or soul.
In the same degree as an attitude is habitual, is it a more
or less firmly welded function-complex, with which the
ego may be more or less identified. This is plastically
expressed in language: of a man who has an habitual
attitude towards certain situations, we are accustomed to
say: He is quite another man when doing this or that.
This is a practical demonstration of the independence of
the function-complex of an habitual attitude; it is as
though another personality had taken possession of the
individual, as ‘ though another spirit had entered into him \
The same autonomy as is so often granted to the outer
attitude is also claimed by the soul or inner attitude. One
of the most difficult of all educational achievements is
this task of changing the outer attitude, or persona. But
to change the soul is just as difficult, since its structure
tends to be just as firmly welded as is that of the persona.
U
594
DEFINITIONS
Just as the persona is an entity, which often appears to
constitute the whole character of a man, even accompany*
ing him practically without change throughout his entire
life, so the soul is also a definitely circumscribed entity,
with a character which may prove unalterably firm
and independent. Hence, it frequently offers itself to
characterization and description.
As regards the character of the soul, my experience
confirms the validity of the general principle that it
maintains, on the whole, a complementary relation to the
outer character. Experience teaches us that the soul is
wont to contain all those general human qualities the
conscious attitude lacks. The tyrant tormented by bad
dreams, gloomy forebodings, and inner fears, is a typical
figure. Outwardly inconsiderate, harsh, , and unapproach-
able, he is inwardly susceptible to every shadow, and
subject to every fancy, as though he were the least
independent, and the most impressionable, of men.
Thus his soul contains those general human qualities of
suggestibility and weakness which are wholly lacking in
his outer attitude, or persona. Where the persona is
intellectual, the soul is quite certainly sentimental. That
the complementary character of the soul is also concerned
with the sex-character is a fact which can no longer
seriously be doubted. A very feminine woman has a
masculine soul, and a very manly man a feminine soul.
This opposition is based upon the fact that a man f or
instance, is not in all things wholly masculine, but has
also certain feminine traits. The. more manly his outer
attitude, the more will his womanly traits be effaced;
these then appear in the soul. This circumstance explains
why it is that the very manly men are most subject to
characteristic weaknesses ; their attitude to the unconscious
has a womanly weakness and impressionability. And,
vice versa, it is often just the most womanly women who,
DEFINITIONS
395
in respect of certain inner things, have an extreme intract-
ableness, obstinacy, and wilfulness; which qualities are
found in such intensity only in the outer attitude of men.
These are manly traits, whose exclusion from the womanly
outer attitude makes them qualities of the soul. If, there-
fore, we speak of the anima of a man, we must logically
speak of the animus of a woman, if we are to give the
soul of a woman its right name. Whereas logic and
objective reality commonly prevail in the outer attitude
of man, or are at least regarded as an ideal, in the case
of woman it is feeling. But in the soul the relations are
reversed : inwardly it is the man who feels, and the woman
who reflects. Hence man’s greater liability to total despair,
while a woman can always find comfort and hope ; hence
man is more liable to put an end to himself than woman.
However prone a woman may be to fall a victim to social
circumstances, as in prostitution for instance, a man is
equally delivered over to impulses from the unconscious
in the form of alcoholism and other vices.
As regards the general human characters, the character
of the soul may be deduced from that of the persona.
Everything which should normally be in the outer attitude,
but is decidedly wanting there, will invariably be found
in the inner attitude. This is a basic rule, which my
experience has borne out again and again. But, as regards
individual qualities, nothing can be deduced about them
in this way. We can be certain only that, when a man
is identical with his persona, the individual qualities are
associated with the soul. It is this association which
gives rise to the symbol, so often appearing in dreams,
of the soul’s pregnancy; this symbol has its source in
the primordial image of the hero-birth. The child that
is to be bom signifies the individuality, which, though
existing, is not yet conscious. Hence in the same way
as the persona, which expresses one’s adaptation to the
DEFINITIONS
59*
milieu, Is as a rale strongly influenced and shaped by the
milieu, so the soul is just as profoundly moulded by the
unconscious and its qualities. Just as the persona, almost
necessarily, takes on primitive traits in a primitive milieu,
so the soul assumes the archaic characters of the un-
conscious as well as its prospective, symbolic character.
Whence arise the ‘pregnant’ and ‘creative’ qualities of
the inner attitude. Identity with the persona automatically
conditions an unconscious identity with the soul, because,
when the subject or ego is not differentiated from the
persona, it can have no conscious relation to the processes
of the unconscious. Hence it is these processes: it is
identical with them. The man who is unconditionally his
outer rdle therewith delivers himself over unquestioningly
to the inner processes, i.e. he will even frustrate his outer
rdle by absolute inner necessity, reducing it ad cibsurdum
(enantiodromia ; q.v.). A steady holding to the individual
line is thereby excluded, and his life runs its course in
inevitable opposition. Moreover, in such a case the soul
is always projected into a corresponding, real object, with
which a relation of almost absolute dependence exists.
Every reaction proceeding from this object has an
immediate, inwardly arresting effect upon the subject.
Tragic ties are frequently formed in this way (0. Soul-
image).
49. Soul-Image: The soul-image is a definite image
(q.v.) among those produced by the unconscious. Just as
the persona, or outer attitude, is represented in dreams
by the images of certain persons who possess the out-
standing qualities of the persona in especially mar ke d
form, so the soul, the inner attitude of the unconscious, is
similarly represented by definite persons whose particular
qualities correspond with those of the soul. Such an
image is called a ‘ soul-image ’. Occasionally these images
DEFINITIONS
597
are quite unknown or mythological figures. With men
the soul, i.e. the anima, is usually figured by the un-
conscious in the person of a woman ; with women it is a
man. In every case where the individuality is unconscious,
and therefore associated with the soul, the soul-image
has the character of the same sex. In all those cases in
which an identity with the persona (». Soul) is present,
and the soul accordingly is unconscious, the soul-image
is transferred into, a real person. This person is the
object of an intense love or an equally intense hatred
(possibly even fear). The influence of such a person has
the character of something immediate ' and absolutely
compelling, since it always evokes an affective response.
The affect depends upon the fact that a real conscious
adaptation to the object who represents the soul-image is
impossible. Because the objective relation is alike im-
possible and non-existent, the libido gets dammed up and
explodes in a release of affect. Affects always occur
where there is a failure of adaptation. A conscious
adaptation to the object who represents the soul-image is
impossible only when the subject is unconscious of the
anima. Were he conscious of it, it could be distinguished
from the object, whose immediate effects might then be
resolved, since the potency of the object depends upon
the projection of the soul-image.
For a man, a woman is best fitted to be the bearer
of his soul-image, by virtue of the womanly quality of
his soul; similarly a man, in the case of a woman.
Wherever an unconditional, or almost magical, relation
exists between the sexes, it is always a question of pro-
jection of the soul-image. Since such relations are
common, just as frequently must the soul be unconscious,
Le. great numbers of men must be unaware of how they
are related to the inner psychic processes. Because such
unconsciousness goes always hand in hand with a cor-
598
DEFINITIONS
respondingly complete identification with the persona
(». Soul), it clearly follows that the latter also must occur
very frequently. This accords with reality; for, as a
matter of fact, large numbers of men are wholly identified
with their outer attitude, and therefore have no conscious
relation to their inner processes. But the converse may
also happen; namely, where the soul-image is not pro-
jected, but remains with the subject; whereupon an
identification with the soul is liable to result just in so far
as the subject is himself convinced that his manner of
behaviour to his inner processes is also his unique and
actual character. In such a case, the unconsciousness of
the persona results in its projection upon an object, more
especially of the same sex, thus providing a foundation
for many cases of more or less admitted homosexuality,
and of father-transferences in men or mother-transferences
in women. Such cases are always persons with defective
external adaptation and comparative unrelatedness, because
the identification with the soul begets an attitude with a
predominant orientation towards the inner processes,
whereby the object is deprived of its determining influence.
Whenever the soul-image is projected, an unconditional,
affective tie to the object appears. If it is not projected,
a relatively unadapted state results, which Freud has
partially described as narcissism. The projection of the
soul-image offers a release from a too great preoccupation
with the inner processes, in so far as the behaviour of the
object harmonizes with the soul-image. The subject is
thus enabled to live his persona, and to develop it further.
In the long - run, however, the object will scarcely be able
to correspond consistently with the soul-image, although
many women succeed, by constantly disregarding their
own lives, in representing their husband’s soul-image for
a very considerable time. The biological, feminine instinct
assists them in this. A man may unconsciously do the
DEFINITIONS
599
same for his wife, only he is thereby prompted to deeds
which, for good or evil, finally exceed his powers. In his
case, also, the biological masculine instinct is an assistance.
If the soul-image is not projected, a thoroughly morbid
differentiation of the relation to the unconscious gradually
develops. The subject is increasingly overwhelmed by
unconscious contents, which his defective relation to the
object makes him powerless to organize, or to put to any
sort of use. Obviously, such contents as these very
seriously prejudice the relation to the object These
attitudes only represent, of course, the two extremes,
between which the more normal attitudes are to be found.
The normal man, as we know, is not distinguished by any
special clarity, purity, or depth, in the matter of psycho-
logical phenomena, but commonly inclines to a certain
indistinctness in such matters. In men with a good-
natured and inoffensive outer attitude, the soul-image,
as a rule, has a rather malevolent character. A good
literary example of this is the daemonic woman who
accompanies Zeus in Spitteler’s “ Olympischer Friihling.”
For the idealistic woman, a depraved man is often a
bearer of the soul-image ; hence the ‘ salvation phantasy ’
so frequent in such cases. The same thing often happens
with men, where the prostitute is surrounded with the
halo of a soul crying for succour.
60. Subjective Plane : By interpretation upon the sub-
jective plane, I understand that conception of a dream or
phantasy in which the persons or conditions appearing
therein are related to subjective factors entirely belonging
to the jsubject’s own psyche. It is common knowledge that
the image of an object existing in our psyche is never
exactly like the object, but at most only similar. Although
admittedly brought about through sense-perceptions and
their apperception, it is actually the product of processes
6oo
DEFINITIONS
inherent in the psyche whose activity the object merely
stimulates. Experience shows that the evidence of our
senses very largely coincides with the qualities of the object,
but our apperception is subject to well-nigh incalculable
subjective influences, which render the correct knowledge
of a human character extraordinarily difficult. Moreover,
such a complex psychic factor as is presented by a human
character offers only a very slight field for pure sense
perception. Its cognition also demands ‘feeling-into*,
reflection, and intuition. The final judgment that issues
from these complex factors is always of very doubtful
tralue ; necessarily, therefore, the image we form of a human
object is, to a very large extent, subjectively conditioned.
Hence, in practical psychology we should be well advised
to differentiate the image or imago of a man quite definitely
from his real existence. Not infrequently as a result of
its extremely subjective origin, an imago is actually more
an image of a subjective function-complex than of the.
object itself.
In the analytical treatment of unconscious products,
therefore, it is essential that the imago shall not immedi-
. ately be assumed to be identical with the object ; it is wiser
to regard it as an image of the subjective relation to the
object. This is what is meant by the consideration of a
product upon the subjective plane.
The treatment of an unconscious product upon this
plane results in the presence of subjective judgments and
tendencies of which, the bearer is made the object When,
therefore, an object-imago appears in an unconscious
product, it is not definitely concerned with the real object
per se 9 but just as much, possibly even more, with a sub-
jective function-complex (v. Soul-image).
The application of meaning upon this plane yields us
a comprehensive psychological explanation, not only of
dreams but also of literary works, in which the individual
DEFINITIONS
601
figures represent relatively autonomous function-complexes
in the psyche of the poet
Bl. Symbol : The concept of a symbol should, in my
view, be strictly differentiated from that of a mere sign.
Symbolic and semiotic inteipretations are entirely different
things. In his book Ferrero 1 does not speak of symbols
in the strict sense, but of signs. For instance, the old custom
of handing over a sod of turf at the sale of a piece of land,
might be described as * symbolic 9 in the vulgar use of the
word ; but actually it is purely semiotic in character. The
piece of turf is a sign , or token, representing the whole
estate The winged wheel worn by the railway employes
is not a symbol of the railway, but a sign that distinguishes
the personnel of the railway. But the symbol always
presupposes that the chosen expression is the best possible
description, or formula, of a relatively unknown fact; a
fact, however, which is none the less recognized or postu-
lated as existing. Thus, when the winged-wheel badge of
the railway employ^ is explained as a symbol, it is tanta-
mount to saying that the man has to do with an unknown
entity whose nature cannot be differently or better ex-
pressed than by a winged wheel. Every view which
interprets the symbolic expression as an analogous or
abbreviated expression of a known thing is semiotic. A
conception which interprets the symbolic expression as the
best possible formulation of a relatively unknown thing
which cannot conceivably, therefore, be more clearly or
characteristically represented is symbolic. A view which
interprets the symbolic expression as an intentional tran-
scription or transformation of a known thing is allegoric.
The explanation of the Cross as a symbol of Divine Love
is semiotic , since Divine Love describes the fact to be ex-
pressed better and more aptly than a cross, which can have
1 Ferrero, Les his psychohgiques du symbolisms, 1893.
602
DEFINITIONS
many other meanings. Whereas that interpretation of the
Cross is symbolic which puts it above all imaginable
explanations, regarding it as an expression of an unknown
and as yet incomprehensible fact of a mystical or trans-
cendent, i.e . psychological character, which simply finds its
most striking and appropriate representation in the Cross.
In so far as a symbol is a living thing, it is the
expression of a thing not to be characterized in any other
or better way. The symbol is alive only in so far as it is
pregnant with meaning. But, if its meaning is bom out
of it, i.e. if that expression should be found which formu-
lates the sought, expected, or divined thing still better
than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is
dead, i.e. it possesses only a historical significance. We
may still go on speaking of it as a symbol, under the
tacit assumption that we are speaking of it as it was before
its better expression had been bom from it The way in
which St Paul and the early mystical speculators handle
the symbol. of the Cross shows that for them it was a
living symbol which represented the inexpressible in an
unsurpassable way .
For every esoteric explanation the symbol is dead,
since through esoterism it has been brought to a better
expression (at least ostensibly), whereupon it merely
serves as a conventional sign for associations which are
more completely and better known elsewhere. Only for
the exoteric standpoint is the symbol always living. An
expression that stands for a known thing always remains
merely a sign and is never a symbol. It is, therefore,
quite impossible to make a living symbol, i.e. one that is
pregnant with meaning, from known associations. For
what is thus manufactured never contains more than was
put into it Eveiy psychic product, in so far as it is the
best possible expression at the moment for a fact as yet
unknown or only relatively known, may be regarded as
DEFINITIONS
603
a symbol, provided also that we are prepared to accept
the expression as designating something that is only
divined and not yet clearly conscious.
Inasmuch as every scientific theory contains a hypo-
thesis, and therefore an anticipatory designation of a fact
still essentially unknown, it is a symbol. Furthermore,
every psychological phenomenon is a symbol when we
are willing to assume that it purports, or signifies, some-
thing different and still greater, something therefore which
is withheld from present knowledge. This assumption
is absolutely possible to every consciousness which is
orientated to the deeper meaning of things, and to the
possibilities such an attitude enfolds. Such an assumption
is impossible only for this same consciousness when it has
itself contrived an expression, merely to contain or affirm
just as much as the purpose of its creation intended, as
for example a mathematical term. For another conscious-
ness, however, this restriction does not exist at all. It can
also conceive the mathematical term as a symbol of an
unknown psychic fact concealed within the purpose of its
production, in so far as this fact is demonstrably unknown
to the man who created the semiotic expression, and
therefore could not be the object of any conscious use.
Whether a thing is a symbol or not depends chiefly
upon the attitude of the consciousness considering it ; as
for instance, a mind that regards the given fact not merely
as such but also as an expression of the yet unknown.
Hence it is quite possible for a man to produce a fact
which does not appear in the least symbolic to himself,
although profoundly so to another. The converse is also
possible. There are undoubtedly products whose sym-
bolical character not merely depends upon the attitude
of the considering consciousness, but manifests itself
spontaneously in a symbolical effect upon the regarding
’ subject. Such products are so fashioned that they must
604
DEFINITIONS
forfeit every sort of meaning, unless the symbolical one is
conceded them. As a pure actuality, a triangle in which
an eye is enclosed is so meaningless that it is impossible
for the observer to regard it as mere accidental trifling.
Such a figure immediately conjures up a symbolical
conception of it This effect is supported either by a
frequent and identical occurrence of the same figure, or by
a particularly careful and arresting manner of production
which is the actual expression of a particular value placed
upon it
Symbols that are without the spontaneous effect just
described are either dead, i.e. outstripped by a better
formulation, or else products whose symbolical nature
depends exclusively upon the attitude of the observing
consciousness. This attitude that conceives the given
phenomenon as symbolic may be briefly described as the
symbolical attitude . It is only partially justified by the
behaviour of things ; for the rest, it is the outcome of a
definite view of life endowing the occurrence, whether
great or small, with a meaning to which a certain deeper
value is given than to pure actuality. This view of things
stands opposed to another view, which lays the accent
upon pure actuality, and subordinates meaning to facts.
For this latter attitude there can be no symbol at all,
wherever the symbolism depends exclusively upon the
manner of consideration. But * even for such an attitude
symbols also exist : namely, those that prompt the
observer to the conjecture of a hidden meaning. An
image of a god with the head of a bull can certainly be
explained as a human body with a bull’s head. But this
explanation could scarcely hold the scales against the
symbolic interpretation, since the symbol is too arresting
to be entirely overlooked. A symbol that seems to
obtrude its symbolical nature need not be alive. Its effect
may be wholly restricted, for instance, to the historical
DEFINITIONS
605
or philosophical intellect It merely arouses intellectual
or aesthetic interest. But a symbol really lives only when
it is the best and highest possible expression of something
divined but not yet known even to the observer. For
under these circumstances it provokes unconscious partici-
pation. It advances and creates life. As Faust says:
“ How differently this token works upon me ! ”
The living symbol shapes and formulates an essential
unconscious factor, and the more generally this factor
prevails, the more general is the operation of the symbol ;
for in every soul it touches an associated chord. Since, on
the one hand the symbol is the best possible expression
of what is still unknown — an expression, moreover, which
cannot be surpassed for the given epoch — it must proceed
from the most complex and differentiated contemporary
mental atmosphere. But since, on the other hand, the
living symbol must embrace and contain that which relates
a considerable group of men for such an effect to be within
its power, it must contain just that which may be common
to a large group of men. Hence, this can never be the
most highly differentiated or the highest attainable, since
only the very few could attain to, or understand it ; but it
must be something that is still so primitive that its omni-
presence stands beyond all doubt. Only when the symbol
comprises this something, and brings it to the highest
possible expression, has it any general efficacy. Therein
consists the potent and, at the same time, redeeming effect
of a living, social symbol.
All that I have now said concerning the social
symbol holds good for the individual symbol. There are
individual psychic products, whose manifest symbolic
character at once compels a symbolical conception. For
the individual, they possess a similar functional signifi-
cance as the social symbol for a larger human group.
Such products, however, never have an exclusively con-
5oG
DEFINITIONS
scions or unconscious source, but proceed from a uniform
co-operation of both. Purely conscious products are no
more convincingly symbolic, per se, than purely uncon-
scious products, and vice versa; it devolves, therefore,
upon the symbolical attitude of the observing conscious-
ness to endow them with the character of a symbol. But
they may equally well be conceived as mere causally
conditioned facts, in much the same sense as one might
regard the red exanthema of scarlet fever as a ‘ symbol ’
of the disease. In such a case, of course, it is correct to
speak of a ‘symptom’, not of a symbol. In my view,
therefore, Freud is justified, when, from his standpoint, he
speaks of symptomatic \ rather than symbolical actions;
since, for him, these phenomena are not symbolic in the
sense here defined, but are symptomatic signs of a definite
and generally known underlying process. There are, of
course, neurotics who regard their unconscious products,
which are primarily morbid symptoms, as symbols of
supreme importance. Generally, however, this is not the
case. On the contrary, the neurotic of to-day is only too
prone to regard a product that may actually be full of
significance, as a ‘ symptom ’.
The fact that there are two distinct and mutually
contradictory views, eagerly advocated on either side,
concerning the meaning and the meaninglessness of things,
can only show that processes clearly exist which express
no particular meaning, being in fact mere consequences, or
symptoms; while there are other processes which bear
within them a hidden meaning, processes which have not
merely arisen from something, but also tend to become
something, and are therefore symbols. It is left to our
judgment and criticism to decide whether the thing we
are dealing with is a symptom or a symbol.
The symbol is always a creation of an extremely
1 Freud, Psychopathology of Everyday Lift.
DEFINITIONS
607
complex nature, since data proceeding from every psychic
function have entered into its composition. Hence its
nature is neither rational nor irrational. It certainly has
one side that accords with reason, but it has also another
side that is inaccessible to reason ; for not only the data
of reason, but also the irrational data of pure inner and
outer perception, have entered into its nature. The pro-
spective meaning and pregnant significance of the symbol
appeals just as strongly to thinking as to feeling, while
its peculiar plastic imagery when shaped into sensuous
form stimulates sensation just as much as intuition. The
living symbol cannot come to birth in an inert or poorly-
developed mind, for such a man will rest content with the
already existing symbols offered by established tradition.
Only the passionate yearning of a highly developed mind,
for whom the dictated symbol no longer contains the
highest reconciliation in one expression, can create a new
symbol. But, inasmuch as the symbol proceeds from his
highest and latest mental achievement and must also
include the deepest roots of his being, it cannot be a one-
sided product of the most highly differentiated mental
functions, but must at least have an equal source, in the
lowest and most primitive motions of his psyche. For
this co-operation of antithetic states to be at all possible,
they must both stand side by side in fullest conscious
opposition. Such a condition necessarily entails a violent
disunion with oneself, even to a point where thesis and
antithesis mutually deny each other, while the ego is still
forced to recognize its absolute participation in both.
But, should there exist a subordination of one part, the
symbol will be disproportionately the product of the other,
and in corresponding degree will be less a symbol than a
symptom, viz. the symptom of a repressed antithesis.
But, to the extent in which a symbol is merely a symptom,
it also lacks the redeeming effect, since it fails to express
6o8
DEFINITIONS
the full right to existence of every portion of the psyche,
constantly calling to mind the suppression of the anti-
thesis, although consciousness may omit to take this into
account.
But, when the opposites are given a complete equality
of right, attested to by the ego’s unconditioned participa-
tion in both thesis and antithesis, a suspension of the will
results ; for the will can no longer be operative while every
motive has an equally strong counter-motive by its side.
Since life cannot tolerate suspension, a damming up of
vital energy results, which would lead to an insupportable
condition from the tension of the opposites did not a new
reconciling function arise which could lead above and
beyond the opposites. It arises naturally, however, from
the regression of the libido effected by its damming up.
Since progress is made impossible by the total disunion
of the will, the libido streams backwards, the stream flows
back as it were to its source, i.e. the suspension and
inactivity of the conscious brings about an activity of
the unconscious where all the differentiated functions have
their common, archaic root, and where that promiscuity
of contents exists of which the primitive mentality still
exhibits numerous remainders.
Through the activity of the unconscious, a content is
unearthed which is constellated by thesis and antithesis
in equal measure, and is related to both in a compensatory
(q.v.) relation. Since this content discloses a relation to
both thesis and antithesis, it forms a middle territory,
upon which the opposites can be reconciled. Suppose,
for example, we conceive the opposition to be sensuality
versus spirituality ; then, by virtue of its wealth of spiritual
associations, the mediatory content bom from the uncon-
scious offers a welcome expression to the spiritual thesis,
and by virtue of its plastic sensuousness it embraces the
sensual antithesis. But the ego rent between thesis and
DEFINITIONS
609
antithesis finds in the uniting middle territory its counter-
part, its reconciling and unique expression; and eagerly
seizes upon it, in order to be delivered from its division.
Hence, the energy created by the tension of the opposites
flows into the mediatory expression, protecting it against
the conflict of the opposites which forthwith begins both
about it and within, since both are striving to resolve the
new expression in their own specific sense. Spirituality
tries to make something spiritual out of the unconscious
expression, while sensuality aims at something sensual;
the one wishing to create science and art from the new
expression, the other sensual experience. The resolution
of the unconscious product into either is successful only
when the incompletely divided ego clings rather more to
one side than the other.
Should one side succeed in resolving the unconscious
product, it does not fall alone to that side, but the ego
goes with it ; whereupon an identification of the ego with
the most-favoured function (v. Inferior Function) inevitably
follows. This results in a subsequent repetition of the
process of division upon a higher plane. But if, through
the resoluteness of the ego, neither thesis nor antithesis
can succeed in resolving the unconscious product, this is
sufficient demonstration that the unconscious expression
is superior to both sides.
The steadfastness of the ego and the superiority of the
mediatory expression over thesis and antithesis are to my
mind correlates* each mutually conditioning the other.
It would appear at times as though the fixity of the
inborn individuality were the decisive factor, at times as
though the mediatory expression possessed a superior
force prompting the ego to absolute steadfastness. But,
in reality, it is quite conceivable that the firmness and
certainty of the individuality on the one hand, and the
superior force of the mediatory product on the other, are
6x0 DEFINITIONS
merely tokens of one and the same fact. When the
mediatory product is preserved in this way, it fashions 'a
raw product which is for construction, not for dissolution,
and which becomes a common object for both thesis and
antithesis; thus it becomes a new content that governs
the whole attitude, putting an end to the division, and
forcing the energy of the opposites into a common channel.
The suspension of life is, therewith, abolished, and the
individual life can compass a greater range with new
energy and new goals.
In its totality I have named the process just described
the transcendent function, and here I am not using the term
‘function’ in the sense of a basic function, but rather as
a complex-function compounded of other functions, neither
with ‘transcendent’ do I wish to designate any meta-
physical quality, but merely the fact that by this function
a transition is made possible from the one attitude to the
other. The raw material, when elaborated by the thesis
and antithesis, which in its process of formation reconciles
the opposites, is the living symbol. In the essential raw-
ness of its material, defying time and dissolution, lies its
prospective significance, and in the form which its crude
material receives through the influence of the opposites,
lies its effective power over all the psychic functions.
Indications of the foundations of the symbol-for ming
process are to be found in the scanty records of the
initiation-period experienced by founders of religions, e.g.
Jesus and Satan, Buddha and Mara, Luther and the Devil,
Zwingli and his previous worldly life; also Goethe’s
conception of the rejuvenation of Faust through the contract
with the Devil Towards the end of Zarathustra we find
a striking example of the suppression of the antithesis in
the figure of the “ ugliest man”.
52. Synthetic : (o. Constructive).
DEFINITIONS
611
53. Thinking: This I regard as one of the four basic
psychological functions (v. Function). Thinking is that
psychological function which, in accordance with its own
laws, brings given presentations into conceptual connection.
It is an apperceptive activity and, as such, must be
differentiated into active and passive thought-activity.
Active thinking is an act of will, passive thinking an
occurrence. In the former case, I submit the representa-
tion to a deliberate act of judgment; in the latter case,
conceptual connections establish themselves, and judg-
ments are formed which may even contradict my aim —
they may lack all harmony with my conscious objective,
hence also, for me, any feeling of direction, although by
an act of active apperception I may subsequently come
to a recognition of their directedness. Active thinking
would correspond, therefore, with my idea of directed
thinking . 1 Passive thinking was inadequately character-
ized in my previous work as u phantasying ” 2 . To-day I
would term it intuitive thinking.
To my mind, a simple stringing together of representa-
tions, such as is described by certain psychologists as
associative thinking 8 is not thinking at all, but mere
presentation . The term ‘thinking* should, in my view,
be confined to the linking up of representations by means
of a concept, where, in other words, an act of judgment
prevails, whether such act be the product of one’s inten-
tion or not
The faculty of directed thinking, I term intellect: the
faculty of passive, or undirected, thinking, I term intellectual
intuition. Furthermore, I describe directed thinking or
intellect as the rational (q.v.) function, since it arranges the
representations under concepts in accordance with the
presuppositions of my conscious rational norm. Undirected
1 Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious , p. 14. * Ibid, p. 19.
3 James, Text-hook of Psychology , p. 464 (London : Longmans & Co.).
6ia
DEFINITIONS
thinking, or intellectual intuition, on the contrary is, in my
view, an irrational (q.v.) function, since it criticizes and
arranges the representations according to norms that are
unconscious to me and consequently not appreciated as
reasonable. In certain cases, however, I may recognize
subsequently that the intuitive act of judgment also
corresponds with reason, although it has come about in
a way that appears to me irrational.
Thinking that is regulated by feeling, I do not regard
as intuitive thinking, but as thought dependent upon
feeling ; it does not follow its own logical principle, but is
subordinated to the principle of feeling. In such thinking
the laws of logic are only ostensibly present; in reality
they are suspended in favour of the aims of feeling.
54. Transcendent Function. — (v. Symbol).
55. Type : A type is a specimen, or example, which
reproduces in a characteristic way the character of a
species or general class. In the narrower meaning used
in this particular work, a type is a characteristic model
of a general attitude (q.v.) occurring in many individual
forms. From a great number of existing or possible
attitudes I have, in this particular research, brought four
into especial relief; namely, those that are primarily
orientated by the four basic psychological functions (o.
Function) viz. thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation.
In so far as such an attitude is habitual, thus lending a
certain stamp to the character of the individual, I speak
of a psychological type. These types, which are based
upon the root-functions and which one can term the
thinking, the feeling, the intuitive, and the sensational
types, may be divided into two classes according to the
quality of the respective basic function : viz. the rational
and the irrational. The thinking and the feeling types
DEFINITIONS
613
belong to the former. The intuitive and the sensational
to the latter, («. Rational ; Irrational). A further differen-
tiation into two classes is permitted by the preferential
movements of the libido, namely introversion and extrover-
sion (q.v.). All the basic types can belong equally well
to the one or the other class, according to the predomin-
ance of introversion or extraversion in the general attitude.
A thinking type may belong either to the introverted or
the extraverted class, and the same holds good for any
other type. The differentiation into rational and irrational
types is another point of view, and has nothing to do
with introversion and extraversion.
In two previous contributions upon the theory of
types 1 I did not differentiate the thinking and feeling
from the introverted and extraverted types, but identified
the thinking type with the introverted, and the feeling
with the extraverted. But a more complete investigation
of the material has shown me that we must treat the
introversion and the extraversion types as superordinated
categories to the function types. Such a division, more-
over, entirely corresponds with experience, since, for
example, there are, undoubtedly two sorts of feeling-types,
the attitude of one being orientated more by his feeling-
experience, the other more by the object.
56. Unconscious: The concept of the unconscious is
for me an exclusively psychological concept, and not a philo-
sophical concept in the metaphysical sense. In my view,
the unconscious is a psychological boundary-concept,
which covers all those psychic contents or processes which
are not conscious, i.e. not related to the ego in a perceptible
way. My justification for speaking of the existence of
1 Jung, Contribution b I’ftude Aes typos psychologiques (Arch, do
Psychologic, T. xvi, p. 15a)
Idem, The Psychology of Unconscious Processes ( Collected Papers,
and edn., p. 354)
614
DEFINITIONS
unconscious processes at all is derived purely and solely
from experience, and in particular from psychopathological
experience, where we have undoubted proof that, in a case
of hysterical amnesia, for instance, the ego knows nothing
of the existence of extensive psychological complexes,
and in the next moment a simple hypnotic procedure is
enough to bring the lost contents to complete reproduction.
From thousands of such experiences we may claim a
certain justification for speaking of the existence of
unconscious psychic contents. The question as to the
state in which an unconscious content exists, when not
attached to consciousness, is withheld from every possi-
bility of cognition. It is, therefore, quite superfluous
to hazard conjectures about it Conjectures concer ning
cerebration and the whole physiological process, etc., really
belong to such phantasies. It is also quite impossible to
specify the range of the unconscious, i.e. what contents
it embraces. Only experience can decide such questions.
We know by experience that conscious contents can
become unconscious through loss of their energic value.
This is the normal process of ‘forgetting’. That thos e
contents do not simply get lost beneath the threshold
of consciousness we know from the experience that
occasionally, under suitable conditions, they can again
emerge from their submersion after a decade or so, e.g. in
dreams or under hypnosis in the form of cryptamnesia 1 ,
or through the revival of associations with the forgotten
content
Furthermore, experience teaches us that conscious
contents can fall beneath the threshold of consciousness
through' intentional forgetting ’.without a too considerable
1 Cf . Flournoy, J Des Indes & la plantte Mars. 1900.
Idem, N'ouvelles Observations sur un cas de somnambulisms avec
glossolalie (Arch, de Psychologic , T. i, p. iox)
Jung, On the Psych, and Path, of so-called Occult Phenomena ( Col*
ected Papers)
DEFINITIONS
615
depreciation of value — what Freud terms the repression of
a painful content. A similar effect is produced by the
dissociation of the personality, or the disintegration of
consciousness, as a result of a violent affect or nervous
shock or through the dissolution of the personality in
schizophrenia. (Bleuler).
Similarly, we know from experience that sense-percep-
tions which, either because of their slight intensity or
because of the deviation of attention, do not attain to
conscious apperception, none the less become psychic
contents through unconscious apperception, which again
may be demonstrated by hypnosis, for example. The
same thing may happen with certain conclusions and other
combinations which remain unconscious on account of their
too slight energy-content, or because of the deflection of
attention. Finally, experience also teaches us that there
exist unconscious psychic associations — for instance, mytho-
logical images — which have never been the object of
consciousness, and hence must proceed wholly from
unconscious activity.
To this extent experience gives us certain directing-
points for our assumption of the existence of unconscious
contents. But it can affirm nothing as to what the
unconscious content may possibly be. It is idle to hazard
guesses about it, because what the whole unconscious
content could be is quite incalculable. What is the
furthest limit of a subliminal sense-perception? Is there
any sort of measurement either for the extent or the
subtlety of unconscious combinations? When is a for-
gotten content totally effaced? To such questions there
is no answer.
Our experience hitherto of the nature of unconscious
contents permits us, however, to make a certain general
division of them. We can distinguish a personal uncon-
scious, which embraces all the acquisitions of the personal
6l«
DEFINITIONS
existence — hence the forgotten, the repressed, the sub-
liminally perceived, thought and felt. But, in addition to
these personal unconscious contents, there exist other
contents which do not originate in personal acquisitions
but in the inherited possibility of psychic functioning in
general, viz. in the inherited brain-structure. These are
the mythological associations — those motives and images
which can spring anew in every age and clime, without
historical tradition or migration. I term these contents
the collective unconscious. Just as conscious contents are
engaged in a definite activity, the unconscious contents
— so experience teaches us — are similarly active. Just as
certain results or products proceed from conscious psychic
activity, there are also products of unconscious activity,
as for instance dreams and phantasies. It is vain to
speculate upon the share that consciousness takes in dreams.
A dream presents itself to us: we do not consciously
produce it Conscious reproduction, or even the perception
of it, certainly effects a considerable alteration in it, without,
however, doing away with the basic fact of the unconscious
source of the productive activity.
The functional relation of the unconscious processes
to consciousness we may describe as compensatory (q.v.),
since experience proves that the unconscious process pushes
subliminal material to the surface that is constellated by
the conscious situation — hence all those contents which
could not be lacking in the picture of the conscious situation
if everything were conscious. The compensatory function
of the unconscious becomes all the more manifest, the more
the conscious attitude maintains a one-sided standpoint;
this is confirmed by abundant- examples in the realm of
pathology.
57. Will : I regard as will that sum of psychic energy
which is disposable to consciousness. In accordance with
DEFINITIONS
617
this conception, the process of the will would be an energic
process that is released by conscious motivation. A psychic
process, therefore, which is conditioned by unconscious
motivation I would not include under the concept of the
will. Will is a psychological phenomenon that owes its
existence to culture and moral education, and is, therefore
largely lacking in the primitive mentality.
CONCLUSION
1M our age, which has witnessed the ‘ liberty ygalit 6 ,
fraternity’ achieved by the French Revolution extending
into a wide social movement, that not only pulls down or
exalts political rights to a general and uniform level but
thinks it is able to do away with unhappiness by means
of external regulations and social levelling — in such an
age it is indeed a thankless task to speak of the complete
dissimilarity of the elements which compose the nation.
Although it is certainly a fine thing that every man should
stand equal before the law, that every man should have
his political vote, and that no man through inherited social
position and privilege should unjustly over-reach his brother,
nevertheless it is distinctly less beautiful when the notion
of equality is extended to other provinces of life. A man
must needs have a very clouded vision or must regard
human society from a very misty distance, to cherish the
view that a uniform distribution of happiness can be won
through a uniform regulation of life. Such a man must
already be somewhat deluded if he can really cling to the
notion, for instance, that the same amount of income, or
the same external opportunities of life, must possess
approximately the same significance for all. But what
would such a legislator do with all those for whom life’s
greatest possibility lies not without, but within? Were he
just, he would have to give at least twice as much to one
man as to another, since to the one it means much, to the
other little. This difficulty of the psychological differences
of men, this most necessary factor in providing the vital
energy of a human society no social legislation will sur-
CONCLUSION
619
mount It may well serve a useful purpose, therefore, to
speak of the heterogeneity of men. These differences
involve such different claims to happiness that even the most
consummate legislation could never give them approximate
satisfaction. No general external form could be devised,
however equitable and just it might appear, that would
not involve injustice for one or other human type. That,
in spite of this fact, every kind of enthusiast — political,
social, philosophical and religious — is at work endeavouring
to find those general and uniform external conditions
which shall signify a more general opportunity for happi-
ness, seems to me to be linked up with a general attitude
to life too exclusively orientated by external facts. It is
not possible to do more than touch upon this far-reaching
question here, since it is not the province of this work to
handle such a task. We are here concerned only with
the psychological problem ; and the fact of the different
typical attitudes is a problem of the first order, not only
for psychology but also for all those departments of science
and life in which human psychology plays a decisive rdle.
It is, for instance, an immediately intelligible fact to an
ordinary human intelligence that every philosophy, that is
not just a mere history of philosophy, depends upon a
personal psychological pre-condition. This pre-condition
may be of a purely individual nature, and moreover would
ordinarily be so regarded, if a true psychological criticism
existed at all. Because it has always been taken for granted,
we have thereby overlooked the fact that what we regarded'
as individual prejudice was certainly not so under all
circumstances; since the standpoint of the philosopher
in question often boasted a very imposing following. His
standpoint was acceptable to these men not because they
echoed him without thinking, but because it was something
they could fully understand and appreciate. Such an under-
standing would be quite impossible if the standpoint of the
620
CONCLUSION
philosopher were merely individually determined, for it is
quite certain in that case that he would neither be fully
understood nor even tolerated. The peculiar character of
the standpoint which is understood and appreciated by his
following must, therefore, correspond with a typical
personal attitude, which in the same or similar form finds
many representatives in human society. As a rule, the
partisans of either side attack each other merely externally,
always seeking out the joints in their opponent’s individual
armour. Such a dispute, as a rule, bears little fruit. It
would be of considerably greater value if the contest were
transferred to the psychological realm, whence it actually
originates. Such a transposition would soon reveal the
fact that many different kinds of psychological attitudes
exist, each of which has a right to existence, although
necessarily leading to the setting up of incompatible
theories. As long as one tries to settle the dispute by forms
of external compromise, one merely satisfies the modest
claims of shallow minds that have never yet glowed with
the passion of a principle. But a real understanding can,
in my view, be reached only when the inherent diversity
of the psychological pre-conditions is recognised.
It is a fact, which is constantly and overwhelmingly
apparent in one’s practical work, that a man is well-nigh
incapable of comprehending and giving full sanction to any
other standpoint than his own. In smaller things a pre-
vailing superficiality, a none too frequent indulgence and
tolerance, and an equally rare goodwill, may help to build
a bridge over the chasm which lack of understanding makes
between man and man. But, in more important matters
and especially those wherein the ideal of the type is in
question, an understanding seems, as a rule, to be beyond
the limits of possibility. Strife and misunderstanding are,
assuredly, constant requisites for the tragi-comedy of human
life, but it is none the less undeniable that the advance of
CONCLUSION
621
civilization has led from the right of the strongest to the
establishment of laws, and therewith to the creation of a
court of justice and a standard of rights which are super-
ordinated above the contending parties.
It is my conviction that a basis for the adjustment of
conflicting views could be found in the recognition of types
of attitude, not however of the mere existence of such types
but also of the fact that every man is so imprisoned in his
type that he is simply incapable of a complete under-
standing of another standpoint, Without a recognition of
this far-reaching demand a violation of the other’s stand-
point is practically inevitable. Just as parties in dispute
forgathering before the law refrain from direct violence,
and confide their mutual claims to the justice of the law
and the impartiality of the judge, so each type, conscious of
his own predilection, must abstain from casting indignities,
suspicions, and depreciatory valuations upon his opposing
type. Through a consideration of the problem of typical
attitudes, and the presentation of it in a certain form and
outline, I aspire to guide my readers to a contemplation of
this picture of the manifold possibilities of viewing life, in
the hope that in so doing I may contribute a small share to
the knowledge of the almost infinite variations and grada-
tions of individual psychology. No one, I trust, will draw
the conclusion from my description of the types that I
believe the four or eight types which I describe to be the
only ones that might ever occur. That would be a grave
misconception, for I have no sort of doubt that the
various attitudes one meets with can also be considered
and classified from other points of view. Indeed, this
actual investigation contains not a few indications of
such other possibilities, as, for instance, a division accord-
ing to the factor of activity. But, whatever may serve
as a criterion for the establishment of types, a comparison
of various forms of habitual attitudes will invariably
629
CONCLUSION
lead to the setting up of an equal number of psychological
types.
However easy it may be to regard the various existing
attitudes from angles other than the one here adopted, it
would certainly be difficult to adduce evidence against the
existence of psychological types. I have no doubt at all
that my opponents will be at some pains to eliminate the
question of types from the scientific agenda, since, for
every theory of complex psychic processes that makes any
pretence to general validity, the type-problem must, to say
the least, be a very unwelcome obstacle. Following the
analogy of every natural science theory, which also pre-
supposes one and the same fundamental nature, every
theory of complex psychic processes presupposes a uniform
human psychology. But in the case of psychology there
is the peculiar condition that, in the making of its concepts,
the psychic process is not merely the object but at the
same time also the subject If, therefore, one assumes,
that in every individual case the subject is one and the
same, it can also be assumed that the subjective process
of the making of concepts is also invariably one and the
same. That this is not so, however, is most impressively
demonstrated by the very existence of the most diverse
views upon the nature of complex psychic processes.
Naturally, a new theory is prone to assume that all other
views have been wrong, and, as a rule, this is solely due to
the fact that the author has a different subjective view
from that of his predecessors. He does not reflect that
the psychology he sees is his psychology, and, in the best
case, the psychology of his type. He, therefore, supposes
that there can only be one true interpretation of the psychic
process which is the object of his investigation, namely that
which agrees with his type. All the other views — I might
almost say all the seven other views — which, after their
kind, are just as true as his, are for him merely errors. In
CONCLUSION
623
the interest of the validity of his own theory, therefore, he
will feel a lively and humanly understandable repugnance
to the establishment of types of human psychology, since
therewith his conception loses, for instance, seven-eighths
of its value as truth. For then, besides his own theory,
he would have to regard seven other theories of the same
process as equally true, or grant to at least a second theory
a value equal to his own.
I am quite convinced that a Nature-process which is
largely independent of human psychology, and therefore
can only be an object for it, can have but one true ex-
planation. But I am equally convinced that a complex
psychic process which cannot be subjected to any objective
registering apparatus can necessarily only uphold that
explanation which, as subject, it itself produces, i.e. the
author of the concept can produce only such a concept as
corresponds with the psychic process he is endeavouring
to explain. But the concept can correspond only when it
coincides with the process to be explained in the thinking
subject himself. If the process to be explained had
neither any sort of existence in the author himself nor any
analogy to it, he would be faced by a complete enigma,
whose explanation he would have to leave to the man who
himself experienced the process. How a vision comes
about, I can never bring into experience by any objective
apparatus ; thus I can explain its origin only as I under-
stand it. In this ‘ as I understand it’, however, there lies
the predilection, for at best my explanation proceeds from
the way the process of a vision is presented to myself.
But who gives me the right to assume that in everyone
else the process of the vision has an identical, or even a
similar, presentation ?
With apparent justice, one will instance the universal
homogeneity of human psychology in every age and clime
as an argument in favour of this universality of the
6*4
CONCLUSION
subjectively conditioned judgment I am myself so
profoundly convinced of this homogeneity of the human
psyche that I have actually embraced it in the concept of
the collective unconscious, as a universal and homogeneous
substratum whose homogeneity extends even into a world-
wide identity or similarity of myths and fairy-tales ; so
that a negro of the Southern States of America dreams
in the motives of Grecian mythology, and a Swiss grocer’s
apprentice repeats in his psychosis, the vision of an
Egyptian Gnostic.
From this fundamental uniformity, however, an equally
great dissimilarity of the conscious psyche stands out in
all the bolder relief. What immeasurable distances lie
between the consciousness of a primitive, a Themistoclean
Athenian, and a modem European! What a difference
between the consciousness of the learned professor and
that of his spouse 1 ! What, in any case, would our world
of to-day be like if there existed a uniformity of con-
sciousness? No, the notion of a uniformity of the
conscious psyche is an academic chimera, doubtless
simplifying the task of a University lecturer when facing
his pupils, but shrinking to nothing in the face of reality.
Quite apart from the diversity of the individual whose
innermost nature is sundered from his neighbour by stellar
distances, this types, as classes of individuals, are them-
selves to a very large extent different one from another,
and to the existence of types the diversities of general
conceptions must be ascribed.
In order to discover the' uniformity of the human
psyche I must descend into the very foundations of
consciousness. Only there do I find wherein all are alike.
When I found a theory upon that which connects all, I
explain the psyche from what is its foundation and origin.
But, in so doing, my explanation entirely omits that factor
which consists in its historical or individual differentiation.
CONCLUSION
0*5
With such a theory, I ignore the psychology of the
conscious psyche. Therewith I actually deny the whole
other side of the psyche, namely, its differentiation from
the primordial germinal state. I practically reduce man
to his phylogenetic prototype, or I disintegrate him into
his elementary processes ; and, when I would reconstruct
him out of this reduction, in the former case an ape would
emerge, and in the latter an accumulation of elementary
processes whose interplay would merely yield an aimless
and meaningless reciprocal activity.
Doubtless the explanation of the psychic phenomenon
upon the basis of homogeneity is not only possible, but
also completely justified. But if I wish to develop the
picture of the psyche in its completeness, I must keep
in mind the fact of the diversity of psyches, since the
conscious individual psyche belongs just as much to the
general picture of psychology as does its unconscious
foundation. Hence, in my construction of concepts, I am
equally justified in starting out from the fact of differ-
entiated psyches, and in considering the same process
which I previously considered from the angle of its
uniformity, although nbw from the standpoint of differ*
entiation. This naturally leads me to a view that is
radically opposed to the former one. Everything which
in that view was left out of account as an individual variant
here becomes important as a starting-point for further
differentiations; and everything which there contained a
special value as homogenous now appears to me worthless,
because merely collective. In this view I shall always be
on the look-out for the objective aimed at, and never for
the source whence things come; whereas in the former
view I never troubled myself about the goal, but merely
about the origin. I can, therefore, explain one and the
same psychic process by two antagonistic and mutually
exclusive theories, concerning neither of which am I in a
x
626
CONCLUSION
position to maintain that it is wrong, since the rightness
of the one is proved by the uniformity of the psyche,
while the truth of the other is manifested by its
dissimilarity.
But here, both for the lay public and for the scientific
world, begins that immense difficulty, which the perusal
of my earlier book (Psychology of the Unconscious) so
aggravated, that, on account of it, many otherwise able
minds became utterly confounded (as witnessed by their
precarious criticisms). For there I attempted to present
in concrete material the one view just as much as the
other. But since reality, as we all know, neither consists
in nor adheres to theories, there is in both these views,
which we .are bound to regard as severed, a common
living something which, shimmering multi-coloured in the
soul, combines and sanctions both. Each is a product of
the past and carries a future meaning, and of neither can
it be ascertained with certainty whether it be merely the
end or holds as well a new beginning. For everyone who
thinks there exists but one true explanation of a psychic
process, this vitality of the psychic content, which neces-
sitates two opposite theories, is* a matter for despair,
especially if he should be a lover of simple and uncom-
plicated truths, incapable maybe of thinking both at the
same time.
On the other hand, I am not convinced that, with these
two ways of regarding the psyche, the reductive and the
constructive as I once called them 1 , the possibilities are
exhausted. On the contrary, I believe that other equally
‘true* explanations of the psychic process can still be
advanced, just as many in fact as there are types. More-
over, such explanations will agree just as well, or just as
ill, with one another as the types themselves in their
personal relations. Should, therefore, the existence of
1 Jung, Contents of the Psychoses (Collected Papers).
CONCLUSION
62 ?
typical differences of human psyches be granted, and I
confess I can see no reason why it should not be granted,
the scientific theorist is confronted with the disagreeable
dilemma of either, allowing severally mutually contra-
dictory theories of the same process to exist side by side,
or of making an attempt that is doomed from the outset
to found a sect which claims for itself the only correct
method and the only true theory. The former possibility
encounters not only the above-mentioned extraordinary
difficulty of a duplicated and inherently antagonistic
thought operation, but also collides with one of the first
principles of intellectual morality : * principia explicandi non
sunt multiplicanda — praeter necessitatem*. The necessity
of a plurality of explanations, however, in the case of a
psychological theory is definitely granted, since, unlike any
other natural science theory, the object of psychological
explanation is of like nature with the subject : one psycho-
logical process has to explain another. This serious
difficulty has already driven thinking minds to remarkable
subterfuges, as, for instance, the assumption of an * objective
mind' which could stand outside psychology and, hence,
be able to regard objectivdy its own psyche; or the
similar assumption, that the intellect is a faculty which
can also stand outside itself and regard itself. With these
and similar expedients that Archimedean, extra-terrestrial
point is to be created by means of which thp intellect shall
raise itself from its own hinges. I can understand the
profound human need for comfort and ease, but I do not
understand why truth should bend to this need. I also
understand that, aesthetically, it would be far more
satisfactory if, instead of the paradox of mutually contra-
dictory explanations, we could reduce the psychic process
to the simplest possible, instinctive foundation, and be at
rest, or if we could credit it with a metaphysical goal of
redemption, and find peace in that hope.
628
CONCLUSION
But whatever we strive to fathom with our intellect
will end in paradox and relativity, if, indeed, it be honest
work and not a mere petitio prindpii in the service of
comfort and convenience. That intellectual apprehension
of the psychic process must lead to paradox and relativity
is simply unavoidable, for the reason that the intellect is
only one among divers psychic functions which Nature
intends to serve man in the construction of his objective
images. We should not pretend to understand the world
only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by
feeling. Therefore the judgment of the intellect is, at
best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also
come to an understanding of its inadequacy.
To deny the existence of types is of little use in face
of the fact of their existence. In view of their existence,
therefore, every theory of the psychic processes must
submit to be valued in its turn as a psychic process, and,
moreover, as the expression of an existing and recognized
type of human psychology. Only from such typical
presentations can the materials be gathered whose co-
operation shall bring about the possibility of a higher
synthesis.
INDEX
A priori categories of thought : 377,
380
„ conditions of apprehension:
378
„ idea : 378, 379, 380, 385
' Abaissement du niveau mentals ' ;
156, 250, 566
Abegg, Dr, of Zurich : 244
Abelard : 54, 62, 83, 398
Abstract t hinki ng : 376, 377, 379,
380
„ thoughts and feelings : 521
Abstracting attitude of oriental
religious and art-forms : 364, 365
Abstraction : 64, 339, 340, 342, 358,
520
„ as introverted attitude : 362,
363* 3*>5» 368, 369
,, attitude of (Worringer) : 361,
3 ^ 3 . 3 * 6 , 367
„ definition of: 520
„ function of : 366, 367, 368
„ impulse to : 361
Abstractionist and concrete think-
ing (Flournoy) : 375, 376, 377
Acceptance of evil : 234
Accommodation not true adapta-
tion: 418
Action extraverted : 418
Activation of unconscious images :
292, 293, 2941 296, 300, 301
' Active nature ’ of Jordan : 185,
188
Active thinking as rational : 611
Activity, factor of in Jordan’s
descriptions : 185, 188, 195, 206
Acts of the Apostles (vision of St
Peter) : 579, 580
Adaptation, the observance of uni-
versal laws: 419
Adjustment of extravert, his limita-
tion: 419
Adler, psychology of : 309,454,478,
53 1 * 532, 536, 585
Adler’s 1 fictitious guiding line :
3^9
Adler’s interpretation of phantasy :
78-82
^Esthetic animation (Jodi) : 359
„ devotion, 156
„ ’disposition' of Schiller: 148,
I 53 > 154 . *60, 161, 575
4*9
^Esthetic estimation of the problem
by Nietzsche: 177
11 sensational attitude : 587
„ standpoint : 177, 181
„ types as opposed to rational :
181
Esthetics, problem of typical atti-
tudes in: 358
ASsthetism : 152, 170, 176
Affect, definition of : 522, 544
Affect-explosion occasioned by fail-
ure of adaptation : 597
Affective fluctuations : 244
Affective-sensation : 544
Affectivity as Jordan's character
criterion : 187, 189, 194
„ criterion of (Ostwald) : 404
„ definition of: 523
Affects as instinctive processes : 565
„ pronounced, regarded as sen-
sations : 523, 586
Age of enlightenment: 101,230,381
Agni : 251, 252, 258, 259, 260
Agoraphobia, spiritual : 361
Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew : 331
Allegoric interpretation : 601
Ambitendency : 525, 539
Ambivalency : 525, 539
Ambrosius, St : 286, 287
Amfortas : 269, 270
Amor et visio Dei : 25
Anagogic significance of Silberer:
* 537
Analogy, primitive thinking on the
level of: 534
Analytical therapy, aim of : 533
Ananda or bliss : 150, 308
' Angel abroad and devil at home ’ :
589
Anima as inner attitude or soul:
593*596
„ or soul : 273, 524, 593-596
„ (soul), definition of : 588, 593
Animus of woman : 595
Anquetil du Perron : 152
Anselm of Canterbury : 54.
Anthony, St, biography 01 : 7 2
Antinomians :. 26
Antiphon of Rhamnus : 40
Antisthenes : 38, 45, 47, 50
Antitactic sect of Gnostics : 26, 312
Anton, 531
630
INDEX
Apollo as image of principii indi-
viduationis : 173
Apollonian attitude : 180
Ajghonian-Dionysian antithesis of
Apperception, ^active, impossible
without attitude : 526
„ as bridge : 527
„ definition of : 524, 525
„ passive and active : 376, 385,
524
„ subject to subjective influ-
ences : 600
„ typical differences of : 472
„ unconscious : 615
Approfondissement, introvert’s ten-
dency to : 347, 349
Aquinas, Thomas : 58
Archaic function-ways : 370
Archaism, definition of : 524
Archetype . an, 296, 378, 380, 390,
392, 395» 476, 482, 507, 508,
555
„ as inherited foundation of
psyche : 307
„ as instinctive apprehension :
476
„ as law-determined course : 508
„ as pooled experience of or-
ganic existence : 507
M as primordial image : 476
„ as symbolical formula : 476
„ influence of upon objects : 476
„ of woman : 277
„ the noumenon of the image :
508
Archimedean point : 627
Archontici : 26
Aristotle: 53
Arius, heresy of : 30
Aijuna: 243
Artist as creator and educator:
580
Aryaman. 260
Asses feast in Zarathustra : 229
Assimilation : 393, 422, 449
„ as process of apperception:
525
„ definition of: 525
„ to object : 422, 423, 525
Association fear (Gross) : 343
Association Studies (Jung) : 518
Associative thinking as mere pre-
sentation : 611
Astarte, daughter of Behemoth . 333
Astral and lunar myths : 241
Athanasius, Archbishop of Alex-
andria: 7a
Atharvaveda : 246, 247, 248, 249
259
Atlantis : 445
Atman, or Self : 149* 244. 246, 247,
302
Attention, a secondary psychic
phenomenon : 547
„ extra verted : 417
„ in relation to attitude : 528
Attitude, as conscious function : 271
„ as expectation or state of
readiness : 527
„ definition of : 526
• „ determining efficacy of prim-
ordial image : 358
„ duality of, a normal pheno-
menon : 528
„ habitual as function-complex :
„ historical changes of : 229, 230
„ inner and outer : 591, 592
„ inner and outer, as function-
complexes : 592
„ of unconscious : 422
„ symbolical : 604
„ the basis of intensity of
primary function : 353, 356
„ types : 529, 530
„ underlying sexuality and
power, 271, 529
Attitudes, conscious and uncon-
scious: 527
„ general basic : 186, 198, 328,
529, 612
„ typical, formation of . 329,
53°
Auch Einer (Vischer) : 369, 480
Audition colon it : 323, 539
Augustine, St : 32, 286, 288
Auto-erotic : 472
' Automatismes ’ , psychic (Janet)
574
Automatized processes : 366
Auxiliary construction (Adler) : 331
Avenarius : 566
Azam : 388
Baldwin : 382, 543
Barbarian’s danger of one-sided-
ness : 256
Barbarism : 128, 136, 140, X75, 255,
264. 331
Barlach’s Der tote Tag : 321, 325
Basic functions : 14, 421, 428, 567,
6x2
„ instincts, Schiller on the two :
123
INDEX
Basic Psych. Functions, peculiari-
ties of in extraverted atti-
tude : 428 et seq .
„ Psych. Functions, peculiari-
ties of in introverted atti-
tude : 480 et seq.
Bataks, Religion of the : 304
Beauty as religious ideal with
Schiller : 153
Bee, working, sexual deprivation
of: 296
Behemoth and his host : 228, 3x9,
3*5. 333, 334, 335
„ and Leviathan as the two
monsters of God : 333, 335
„ pact with : 229, 334
Bergaigne on Rita-concept : 258
Bergson : 398, 400, 568
Bernhard, St, prayer of : 273
Berserker rage : 256, 278
Bhagavadgita : 243, 244
Binswanger : 523
Biography, type-problem in : 401
et seq.
Biological precursor of types : 414
Bird, as symbol of Epimethean
realm: 335
Birth of deliverer equivalent to great
catastrophe : 328
“ Birth of Tragedy " by Nietzsche :
170, 177, 182
Blake, William : 308, 336, 414
Blessedness, origin and nature of :
308, 3“
Bleuler: 140, 522, 523, 525, 539,
615
Blonde beast, cult of : 318
Bodhisattva : 221
Bodhi-tree, the chosen : 222
Borborites : 26
Boring in the worship of Agni : 259
Bostonian tourists (James) : 391
Brahma : 244, 247
Brahman as cosmic life-principle :
248, 249, 251
„ as Creator of the world : 245,
„ as Eternal Truth : 247
„ as Gracious One (Vena) : 247
„ as life-force : 249, 251
„ as process, or irrational factor :
246
„ as state of redemption : 245,
246, 247
„ as sun : 247, 248
„ attainment of : 150, 151, 243,
244
„ corresponding with Tao : 263
631
Br ahman essence as psychological
state : 248, 249
„ identified with Rita : 257, 259
„ meaning of the word : 249
„ two great monsters of : 254
Brahman- Atman teaching : 149,
_ 1 5°, 151. 242, 245
Brahmanic conception of problem of
Opposites : 242 et seq.
Brahmahs, sacred caste of : 249
‘ Brain-mythology * : 353, 380
Brain, newly-born, an ancient in-
strument : 378
* Breaking through * of Eckehart :
^ 314, 315
Brwadaranyaka-Upanishad : 245
246, 248
Buddha and Mara (symbol-forming
process) : 610
„ birth of : 221, 222, 320, 331
„ fire-sermon of : 364, 366
Buddhism : 242, 272, 306
Budge, Sir Wallis : 290
Burckhardt, Jakob : 476, 555 .
Bushman and his boy, episode of :
295
Caelestius : 33
Capacity for deviation : 339
Catapatha- Brahmanam : 251, 252,
*53, 258
Catholic authorities : 287
„ Church and Luther : 84, 85
Causal investigation of latent mean-
ing : 57$, 578, 579
„ standpoint taken over from
natural science : 579
„ thinking and empiricism : 393
Celtic mythology : 288
Chalcedon, council of : 30
* Character as seen in Body and
Parentage ' by Jordan : 184
„ social and domestic : 589
„ -splitting in normal indivi-
dual : 589, 590
Child as redeeming symbol : 266,
3*3
„ Tao as spiritual state of : 266
„ -education, our belief in
method: 512
Childhood-complex : 157, 308
Childhood's phantasies : 321
Childlike attitude : 323
„ state : 309, 323
Chinese religion : 242, 264, 268
Christ and Anti-Christ : 340
632
INDEX
Christ and temptation of the Devil :
70
„ as bridegroom : 285
„ birth of : 320
„ -identification of Nietzsche :
54 2
Christ's understanding of His king-
ship phantasy : 70
Christian asceticism : 255
„ attempt at solution : 234, 272
„ ideal as differentiated func-
tion : 231, 232
„ passion-theme and fate of
jewel : 331
„ principle of love : 151
„ process, meaning of : 27 , 28
„ solution : 99
„ sphere and phantasy activity :
70
Christianity, traditional : 229, 236,
291, 292
Chthonic craving : 284
Chn-Hi school of China : 268
Church as bride : 285
„ schisms of Early : 283, 284,
293
„ symbol of in Hennas vision :
283. 293
Churinga rites of Australians : 366
Circulusvitiosus, neurotic : 371, 451
Civilization, advance of : 621
„ present state of : 352
Civilizing and. cultural genius
(Gross): 352
Civitas Dei of St Augustine : 32
Classic and Romantic types
(Ostwald) : 401, 406
„ type as introvert : 404
„ type (Ostwald), characters of :
402
Classical solution : 232
* Cogito ergo cogito ’ of mystical
thinking : 483
Cognition and necessity of subject :
473
„ theory of : 42, 394
Cohen: 549
Collective attitude : 229
„ definition of : 530
„ psyche : 316, 318, 3x9, 33 2
„ unconscious : 236, 237, 240,
271, 3°°f 316, 319, 475» 476,
480, 555. 616, 624
„ unconscious, definition of : 616
Colmar manuscript : 287
Compensation, definition of : 531
„ disturbed in neurotic state:
533
Compensatory reaction of uncon*
sdous : 421, 537
„ relation of unconscious to
conscious : 422, 616
Complementary relation of soul to
outer character: 594, 595,
596
„ sex-character of soul : 594
Complex with commanding value :
Complexes as * possessions ’ : 138
Compulsion as archaic symptom : 525
„ -neurosis of introverted in-
tuitive type : 570
„ -neurosis of introverted sensa-
tion type : 504
Concept, concrete : 522
„ developed from primordial
image : 558
Concepts, general : 530
„ need for precision of : 519
Conceptual-intuition of Hegel : 399
Conceptualism : 63, 66, 398, 399
Conclusion : 618
Concrete thinking, weakness of :
376, 377. 379. 380
Concretism, definition of : 533
„ in science : 381
„ of thought and feeling, as
archaic : 524, 534
Conscience of Epimetheus : 2x3,
222, 329
Conscious activity, selective : 532
„ inner life of introvert : 193
„ -unconscious antithesis, de-
velopment of: 441
Consciousness deepened, as basis for
deepening of individuality :
„ definition of : 535
„ shallow extensive and narrow
intensive of Gross : 346
Consensus gentium : 57, 58, 5x9
Constructive, definition of : 536, 585
„ method: 83, 312, 313, 536,
537. 538
„ method, individualistic : 538
Consubstantiation : 84
Contractive effect (Gross) : 341
Co-operation of unconscious : 159
Cosmogonic myth, projection of:
*50, 151
Counter-function, development of:
558, 560
Creation, positive, as solution oi
conflict of opposites : 400
Creative phantasy : 135, 138, 144,
146, 148, 573, 578, 581
INDEX
Creative psychic activity : 573
„ state, the happy state : 311
Crank, the psychology of the : 508
Crihat , or sarnan^ song ; 253
Cripple Creek : 391
Criterion of extraverted thinking:
425
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) :
54 $, 559
Cross, interpretation of the : 601,
602
Cryptamnesia : 614
Cumont : 288
Cuvier as extraverted thinking type :
o
Cynics : 38, 39, 47
Cyrillian doctrine : 33
Daemon of Socrates : 182
Daemoniac possession : 256
Daemonic effect of soul : 225
Dante's Divina Commedia : 273, 299
„ Inferno : 236
„ quest of Beatrice : 299
Darwin as extraverted thinking
type : 484
Davy, Humphry : 403, 404
De Came Christi : 21
Definitions : 518 et seq.
Dementia Praecox, by Jung : 254
Demiurgos : 117
Demons, as irruptions from uncon-
scious : 138, 139
Dependence upon object : 596, 597,
598
Depersonalization of feeling : 451,
452
De Somniis, of Synesius : 137
Dessoir : 585
Destiny : 262
Destructive character of uncon-
scious archaism : 425, 426
Desubjectification of consciousness :
Dens absconditus : 123, 313
Deussen's Allgemeine Gesch. d.
Philos, : 243 et seq,
„ interpretations : 245, 249, 253
Devotion : 156, 157 »
'Devouring' type of Blake: 336,
414
Diastole as used by Goethe: zi,
179, 252, 263, 313
Diels : 542
Differentiated affectivity of extra-
vert : 198, 199
m feeling: 125
633
Differentiation as starting point :
625
„ definition of : 539
,, of function in civilized life:
94 # 96
„ of instinct: 296
„ required to bring individuality
to consciousness : 561
Diogenes : 39, 50
Dionysian choir : 175
„ expansion or diastole : 179
„ orgies: 174
„ satyr-feasts, as totem feasts :
176
Dionysius the.Areopagite : 58
Dionysos : 172, 173, 176, 177
Diotima: 53
Directed function, identification
with: 370
„ function, the nature of : 371,
, 5 ?°
Disciple, as incarnation of Brah-
man : 248
Discrimination necessary between
conscious man and his
shadow: 203
„ the nature of consciousness :
142, 156
Dissimilation: 393, 394, 395, 325,
540# 551, 582
Dissociation : 484, 574, 573
„ between ego and state of
feeling: 450
„ incompatible with united indi-
viduality : 575
„ of personality : 588, 590, 615
Divine birth as creation of new
symbol: 235
„ birth as psychological fact:
3i4
„ birth as oft-renewing process
(Eckehart) : 313
Divine children, the three : 229, 334,
335
Divine harlot : 234
Docetism : 19, 30, 31
Doctor Illuminatus : 542
Dogmatism governed by idea : 396
„ of extraverted intellectual
standpoint: 440
„ versus Scepticism (James) :
396
Dream as ' guardian of sleep '
(Freud): 537
„ law-determined principle of:
581
Dreams and conscious activity : 616
„ and inner attitude : 591
634
INDEX
Du Bois-Raymond : 402
Duplication of character : 58 8, 598
' Burls Crkdrics 9 : 246, 265, 398
Dvandva, or pair of opposites : 242
Dyophysitic formula : 30, 31, 33
Dynamis: 23, 173, 307, 311, 316,
3 i 8 , 327, 328
Dynamistic conceptions of the East :
266
Ebbinghaus, on attitude : 526
Eberschweiler : 338
Ebionites : 30, 31
Ecclesia, figure of : 284
Across* Vinfams : 230, 236
Education of man : 155, 156, 159
Ego and consciousness : 535, 536
Ego and its relations : 117
„ and Self : 475, 477, 540
„ and subject, relation of in
introverted feeling : 495
„ basis of, always identical with
itself : 450
„ defective relation of to object,
in introverted attitude : 478
„ definition of : 540
„ development of : 475, 477
„ of introvert, its system of
safeguards : 478
„ participation of in thesis and
antithesis : 607, 608, 609
„ reservation of : 472
„ resoluteness of (symbol) : 609
* Egocentric * : -172, 474, 477, 495
Egocentricity of morbid introver-
sion : 477, 488, 495, 498
Ego-complex : 540
EinfOhlung : 358
EinstsUung , or attitude : 526
Alan vital: 398
Eleatic principle : 48
Elijah's ascent into Heaven, medie-
val illustrations of : 288
Elpore : 224
Amile ou as ViducaHon , by Rous-
seau : 104, 105
Emotion, definition of (t>. Affect) : 541
Empathy : 358
Empirical observation, limitations
of: 570
„ thinking : 376, 385, 482
Empiricism and ideologisxn : 381,
382, 383. 387
„ as pluralistic (James) : 373
„ prevalence of : 381
„ synonymous with sensational-
ism (James) 373
Empiricist type (James) : 373
Empiricistic attitude : 393
Enantiodromia, definition of : 541
Enantiodromia of Heraclitus : 123,
228, 333, 541, 596
Encratitic sect of Gnostics : 26, 312
Energetics, laws of : no
Energic psychic process : 581
Energic value of conscious contents :
Energy, concept of : 41, 250, 262,
535. ...
Energy, hypostasizmg of : 250, 535,
Engrams or archetypes: 21 1, 296,
558
Enkekalymmenos, the veiled-man
fallacy : 44
Enlightenment, age of: 101, 230,
381
Enthusiasm in the two types : 407
Epimeleia : 224, 227
Epimethean attitude : 228, 229,
232, 234, 235, 323, 417 , 419
„ quality of inferior function :
442
„ valuation of symbol : 323
Epimetheus and statue of Heracles :
321
„ as extraverted attitude : 207,
222, 228, 419
„ compact of with Behemoth:
228
„ downfall of : 228, 235, 236
„ figure in Goethe's Pandora :
224, 225, 226
„ figure of Goethe : 217, 223
„ kingdom of: 222
,. realm of: 333
„ relation of to world : 208,212,
213, 214, 419
„ reply to angel : 212, 222
„ seeks the jewel : 321
„ the shadow of Spitteler : 540
„ visit to sick Prometheus : 214,
219
Equilibrium, process of psychic : 426
Esoteric explanation of symbol :
602
1 Esprit de Vsscalisr 9 quality of
inferior thinking : 442, 514
Esse in anima : 61, 68
* Est ergo est ' of empiricist : 483 t
Euclid of Megara : 48
Evangelical movement : 84
Eve : 234
Excessively valued idea : 342
Exodus, Book of: 287
INDEX
*35
Exoteric standpoint, symbol alive
for : 602
Extemalization, laws of (Jodi) : 359
Extraversion, active and passive :
543
„ definition of : 542
„ value of : 198, 202
Extravert and introvert, attitude of
vis-a-vis the object: 395,
405,412
„ archaic thoughts of : 187
„ danger of : 420
„ normality of, its conditions :
419
„ specific psychology of: 203,
341, 404, 405
„ unconscious egoism of : 424
Extraverted attitude and problem
of human relationships : 471
„ bias against introverted atti-
tude : 472, 474, 476, 512
„ character of introvert's in-
ferior functions : 489
„ criticism : 197
„ feeling as creative factor : 447
„ feeling, when overstressed in
favour of object : 447
„ feeling- judgment as act of
accommodation : 446
„ Feeling Type : 448 et seq.
„ feeling type, feeling of an
adapted function : 448
„ feeling type, love-choice of :
„ feeling type, thinking of : 351,
427
„ formula, disagreeable results
of : 436-439
„ Intuitive Type : 464 at seq .
„ judgment as predicative : 442
„ man of Jordan : 200, 214, 215
„ mentality, dangers of (Gross) :
352, 420
„ Sensation Type : 457 et seq .
„ thinking as synthetic : 442
., thinking, appearance of : 431,
432
,, thinking, concretistic : 377
thinking, objective criterion
of : 428, 429, 431
„ thinking, peculiarities of : 428,
43i
„ Thinking Type, description
of : 434 et seq .
„ thinking type, impersonal con-
scious attitude of : 439
„ thinking type, the formula of :
435
Extraverted thinking type, uncon-
scious sensitiveness of : 439
„ Type, general attitude of con-
sciousness of : 416
„ Type, general description of :
416
a woman of Jordan : 195
Eye as function-complex : 583
„ consciousness compared with :
532, 557
Faculty-psychology (Wundt) : 384
Falsification of type through imita-
tion : 213
Familial identity : 552
Fanaticism as over-compensated
doubt : 441
Faraday : 403, 404
Fatalism : 373
Father and Mother divinities : 157
Father-transference : 598
Fathers of the Church : 285, 286,
288, 290, 296
Faust as example of dissociation :
255
„ as the Self of Goethe : 540
„ ' How differently this token
works upon me ’ : 605
„ prayer of, to Virgin Mother :
274
„ rejuvenation of, through pact
with Devil : 610
„ solution of problem in : 233,
239. 240 /
„ the medieval Prometheus :
232, 234
„ transformation of, as figured
by Margaret, Helen, etc. ;
273
Feeling, a kind of judging : 544
„ a rational function : 545
„ abstract and concrete : 545
„ active, as directed function :
546
„ and affect : 544
„ and thinking, incompatibility
of : 514
„ and thinking types as rational:
452
„ as process: 543
1 Feeling concept of : 519
„ criterion ox acceptance or re-
jection: 544
,, definition of : 343
„ dependent upon thinking :
544,545
„ distinguished from affect : 522
636
INDEX
Feeling, disturbance of, from assimi-
lation to object : 449
„ futility of classification : 546
„ inaccessible to intellectual de-
finition : 545
„ in extraverted attitude : 446
„ necessarily represses thinking :
449,451 .
Feeling-apperception, active and
passive : 546
‘ Feeling-into * : 64, 156, 393, 567,582
M „ and abstraction : 358,
368, 369
„ „ as extraversion : 360,
363
„ „ definition of : 547
Feeling-intuition as undirected feel-
ing : 546
„ „ of Schopenhauer :
399
Feeling-sensation or sensuous feel-
ing: 119, 125, 127, 129,
180, 544
„ -tone as feeling mixed with
sensation : 585
» -type : 547
: 523
Ferenczi : 566
Ferrero : 601
Fetish and churinga, recharging of :
240
„ power of : 302, 366, 534
Fichte : 54, 55
Fictitious guiding-line (Adler) : 369,
53i
Fire-sermon of Buddha : 364, 366
Flatus vods : 37, 59, 65
Flournoy [Des Indes & la planite
Mars) : 588, 614
„ une mystique modems : 333
„ on James* characters : 375
Forgetting, normal process of : 614
Form and name as two monsters or
functions of Brahman : 254
Formative instinct of Schiller : 126,
129
Formula, an intellectual super-
stition : 441
„ becomes a religion : 441
„ of extraverted thinking type :
435 sag.
„ tyranny of in extraverted
thinking type : 435
Fons signatus : 280
France, Anatole : 37
Free-will : 373, 393, 395
Freedom, inner, impossibility of
proof of : 394
Freedom of subject, conditions of :
295, 396
„ the feeling of : 395
French Revolution : 100, 103, 230,
618
„ school of hypnotists : 470
Frenzy, the Dionysian state : 172
Freud, incest-wish of : 424
, , his interpretation of phantasy:
78-82, 537, 572, 577, 585
„ on repression of parent-imago :
„ psychology of: 78-82, 454,
537, 539, 584, 585, 598, 606,
614
„ reductive method of : 78, 312,
313, 536, 537. 538, 577. 578,
584
„ his view of symbol : 157
„ wish-view of, true for extra-
vert's unconscious : 423, 424
Frobenius: 325
Function, consdous, nature of : 514
„ definition of : 547
„ main, nature of : 5x4
„ natural, an organized living
system : 564
„ secondary, nature of : 5x5
„ subjection of, to sensation
(concretising : 535
Function-complex, independence of:
593
Function-engrams : 2ix, 296, 556
Function-types : 4x2
Functions, basic : 14, 421, 428, 547,
567, 612
„ combinations of main and
auxiliary : 5x5, 5x6
„ grouping of unconscious : 516
„ of relation, mind and speech
as: 254
„ Printipal and Auxiliary ; 513
et seg.
„ rational and irrational : 570,
57i
„ superior and inferior : 87, 324,
370, 426, 427, 563
„ the four basic, selection based
upon experience : 547
„ unconstious, their symbolical
appearance in dreams : 5x7
Fundamental laws of human nature:
263
Galtonesque family-portraits, type-
descriptions as : 5x3
Garden endosed : 285, 286
INDEX
Gannilo : 55, 58
Gauss : 409, 410
Geheimmsse (Die) of Goefhe : 231,
234
General-attitude types : 412, 414
Genius, civilizing and cultural
(Gross) : 352
German 4 classics * . 95
Gilgamesh epic : 256
Gnosis: 234, 256, 289, 230, 291,
292, 298, 299
Gnostic philosophy : 18, 234, 289,
290, 298
Gnostics and their Remains (King) :
289
God and soul essentially the same :
3°7
„ and Godhead, distinction be-
tween (Eckehart) : 315
. „ as autonomous complex : 307
„ as collective idea : 139, 530
„ as determining force : 310
„ as function of the soul : 315
„ as highest intensity of life :
307
„ as inner value : 304, 310
„ as psycho-dynamic state : 305
„ as psychological function of
man : 300, 304, 310
„ as unconscious content : 306
„ as Universal Self of Toju’s
philosophy : 268
„ dynamic character of : 301
„ existence of, dependent upon |
soul (Eckehart) : 31 1, 315
„ growth of concept of : 318
„ m the Devil's shape : 334
„ individual relationship with :
299
„ orthodox view of : 301
„ psychological significance of :
222, 300
„ relativity of : 300 et seq.
„ sickness of : 2x9, 220
„ subjectification of : 318
God-image : 157, 158, 300
God-imago, source of : 301
God-likeness of introverted attitude
towards the idea :
1 17, 120, 122, 123,
219
„ „ of Prometheus : 219,
220
God-renewal and seasonal pheno-
mena : 241
„ „ symbol of : 240, 241,
320
Goethe and Dante : 298
Goethe and Schiller : 88, 102, 118,
121
Goethe's attempt at solution : 231*
272
„ Faust: 158, 170, 232, 233,
239, 240, 255, 267, 272, 273,
444
„ own type : 215
„ principle of systole and dia-
stole : xi, 179, 252, 313
„ Prometheus : 2x5, 217
Golden Age : 108
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers: 541
„ on inherency and predica-
tion : 41, 45, 47, 48, 49
Graeco-Roman art, criterion of : 360
Grail, legend of : 269, 270, 290, 298
Grail-symbol, probably derived from
Gnosis : 291, 298
Grecian and Christian cultures, com-
parison of : 92
„ mythology in dreams of
negroes : 356, 624
Greek Fathers : 285, 286, 296
„ mistrust of powers of Nature :
17?
„ tragedy: 176
Gretchen episode compared with
Pandora : 233, 234
Gross’ hypothesis, summary of : 357
„ Otto : 337, 531
Grosse MAnner, by Ostwald : 401
Guardians of the market-place : 330,
Guillaume von Champeaux : 54
Hallucination: 554
Harking-back to the primitive : 302,
316
Hamack upon Origen : 24
Hartmann, E. von, philosophy of :
209, 585
Hase's History of (he Church : 34
Hegel : 55, 60, 399, 549
Heme, on Plato and Aristotle : 9
* -heit ' and 4 -keit ' (Spitteler) : 212,
2x3, 226
Helen in Faust : 233, 234, 273
Hellenism : 91, 170
Helmholtz as teacher : 409
„ biography of : 402, 408
Hephaestus - Athene relationship :
218, 224
Heraclitus : 123, 541, 542
Herbart, on the reason : 383
Hennas: 275, 278, 280, 281, 282,
283
638
INDEX
Hennas, vision of : 276, 281, 283,
293, 296
Hero, magical power of : 324
Hero-birth, primordial image of :
595
„ -myth of hero and whale : 325
Heterogeneity of men : 619, 625
Hieronymus, St : 289
Hiphil-Hophal, the high-priest : 329,
Historical factor, .a vital need : 423
Hoffding: 543
Holderlin’s Patmos : 326
Holstein-Augustenburg, Duke of,
Schiller's letters to : 87
Holy Communion controversy be-
tween Luther and Zwingli :
84
„ Communion writing by Rad-
bertus upon : 33
Homer as a naive poet : 164
Homogeneity of human psyche : 624
Homoiousia : 30
Homoousia : 30
Homosexuality, from projection of
persona: 398
Human psychology, as opposed to
Nature-process : 623
„ psychology, universal homo-
geneity of : 623
Hylici : 18, 190
Hymn of the Epimethean priests :
321
„ to Mary, the medieval : 285,
288, 289
Hypatia : 137
Hysteria, the extravert's neurosis :
421, 452
Hysterical amnesia : 614
„ characters : 421
Iakchos, winnowing basket of : 289
Idea, abstract, 376, 377, 389, 392,
394, 396, 522, 547, 55i
„ as abstraction : 522
„ as primordial image at stage
of intellectual formulation :
558
„ as primum inovens for intro-
vert : 551
„ as product for extravert : 551
„ as unconscious model: 379,
380, 386. 394. 395. 48a
„ definition of : 547
„ dual nature of : 550
„ hierarchical character of : 396
„ related to image : 547
Ideas ante rem, 378
„ basic, as much feeling as
thought : x8x, 490
„ mystical collective : 530
Idealism or ideologism : 387, 389
„ versus Materialism (James) :
387,388,389.390
Idealist and Realist, the, of Schiller :
168
Identification backward : 3x6
„ definition of : 551, 553
„ distinguished from imitation :
55i
„ leading to growth of secondary
personality : 552
„ purpose of: 552
„ with differentiated function :
127, 128, 551, 552
„ with momentary attitude :
, 590
Identity, an unconscious equality
with object : 553
„ definition of : 552
„ expressed in Christian ideal oi
love: 553 .
„ familial : 552
„ in paranoic delusions : 553
„ original state of: 294, 295,
553. 583. 572, 582
„ responsible for suggestion :
553^
„ the basis of ‘ participation
mystique ' : 553
„ with persona : 595, 596, 597,
598
„ with soul : 596, 598
Ideologism : 381, 382, 387, 389, 394,
395
,, and materialism : 390
Image, an expression of total
psychic situation : 555
„ definition of : 554
„ of tottering man pierced by
arrow : 506
„ or imago of a man different
from his reality : 600
„ personal and primordial : 555
„ pemonal or impersonal : 547
„ primordial: 149, 250, 265,
267, 269, 271, 272, 277, 378,
384. 476. 481, 490, 500, 548,
„ 550. 555
Images, artistic, philosophical and
religious application of :
3 11 , 312
„ value of, for life and happi-
ness : 3x2
Imagination : 82
INDEX
^39
Imaginative activity : 573, 581
Imago of object : 600
Immanuel: 327
Imitatio Chnsti and dissimilation :
394
Imitation a necessary expedient for
development : 551
Imprints or engrams : 556
Impulsion as instinct : 566
Indeterminism versus Determinism
(Tames) : 393
Indian religious practice : 250
teaching : 149, 151. 153. 242,
263, 30a
Individual as against collective :
561, 562, 590
„ definition of : 560
„ degeneration of • 370
„ disposition, factor of: 415,
4x6
„ nucleus, separability of : 137,
139, 144
„ phantasy repressed by collec-
tive symbol : 70
„ psychology, conditioned by
contemporary history : 578
„ way can never be opposed to
collective norm : 563
„ way, never a norm, 563
Individualism : 133, 272, 3x8, 563
Individuality, definition of : 561
suppression of in concretism :
535
„ when unconscious projected
upon objects : 561
Individuation as process of differ-
entiation : 561
, definition of : 561
„ leads to collective solidarity,
not isolation : 562
„ leads to appreciation of collec-
tive norm : 563
„ not unique goal of psycholo-
gical education : 562
Indra: 247
Infant adaptation : 415
Inferior extraversion : 129
function, acceptance of: 99,
xxo
„ function, analytical release
of : 565
„ function, definition of : 563
„ function in extraverted atti-
tude : 427, 428
Inferiority of feeling in extraverted
thinking type : 438, 439
„ with contracted consciousness
(Gross) : 34X
Inferiority with shallow conscious-
ness (Gross) : 341
Inferiority-feeling of Adler : 531
Influence of poets and thinkers : 238
Inherency, principle of : 41, 45, 47,
,50
„ character of inferior thiniring :
442
Inherited functional disposition of
the psyche : 377, 616
Inner obj ect** elements of the un-
conscious : 505
„ objects : 2x0, 591
„ personality opposed to outer
593
„ processes, individual varia-
bility towards : 592
Inouye, Tetsujiro : 268, 269
Inquisition : 293
Instinct and wifi ; 565
„ as inborn manner of acting :
476, 560
., definition of : 565
Intellect, definition of : 566, 6x1
„ inadequacy of : 628
Intellectual formula, limitation of :
436, 437
„ intuition or undirected think-
ing: 6x1
„ standpoint betrayed by re-
pressed feeling : 440
InteUectualism versus Sensational-
ism (James) : 387
Interest as libido bestowed : 521
„ extraverted : 417, 418
Intermediate type of Jordan : 184,
190, 191
Interpretation, causal and purpo-
sive : 578, 580
„ or latent meaning of phantasy:
576
„ upon objective plane : 572
„ upon subjective plane : 572,
599 et seq.
Introjection, active and passive :
567
„ an extraverting process : 567
„ as feeling-into : 547, 553, 583
„ as process of assimilation : 567
„ definition of : 566
Introversion active and passive : 567
„ and extraversion as biological
contrast : 4x4
„ and extraversion, not char-
acters but mechanisms : 354
„ definition of: 567
„ into unconscious : 147, 149,
15°. 156. 309
640
INDEX
Introversion of energy into the Self :
145, 147, 149, 3°4» 309
„ state of : 180
Introvert and extravert, compari-
son of : 199, 202, 205, 404,
405, 406, 483
„ general character of: 485,
486. 487
„ growing isolation of : 489,
504
„ need of, in present day
culture : 352
„ values of : 193, 203
Introverted and extraverted manner
of thinking, opposition of :
386, 483
„ and extraverted view of
general concepts : 385, 386
„ attitude governed by psycho-
logical structure : 475
„ character of extravert’s un-
conscious : 422
„ difficulty of expression : 501
„ feeling counterbalanced by
primitive thinking : 491
„ feeling falsified by egocentric
attitude : 491
„ feeling intensive rather than
extensive : 493
„ feeling, peculiarity of : 206
„ feeling, tendency to over-
power or coerce object : 494
„ Feeling Type : 492 et seq.
„ intellectual, feelings of : 350
„ intuitive, from extraverted
standpoint : 507
„ intuitive, nature of : 505, 506,
507
„ Intuitive Type as seer or
artist : 508, 509
„ Intuitive Type, general de-
scription of: 508
„ man of Jordan : 144
» mentality: 351, 357, 405,
406, 48O
„ posture of fear towards the
object : 362, 479, 480, 485
„ Sensation Type, description
of : 500 et seq .
„ Sensation Type, inaccessible
to objective understanding :
503
„ thinking : 384, 385, 429, 430,
431, 480
., thinking dependent upon arch-
aic image : 482
„ thinking, facts of secondary
importance for : 481
Introverted thinking, new views the
concern of : 481
„ Thinking Type, description
of : 404 et sea.
„ Type, general attitude of
consciousness : 471
„ Type, general description of :
471 et seq.
„ woman of Jordan : 191
Introvert's and extravert’s relative
activity : 410
„ apparent egocentridty : 477
„ archaic affects : 187
„ emotional life : 193, 194
„ greater synthetic capacity .
348. 489
„ ideal a lonely island : 480
„ lack of personal relations:
406, 407, 478
„ lack of practical ability : 486
„ negative relation to object:
485, 511
power psychology : 395
„ primitive relation to object:
479, 485, 488
„ psychology, unconscious atti-
tude of: 477 et seq.
„ tendency to relativism : 349
„ undervaluation of his own
principle : 498
„ unfavourable personal impres-
sion : 409
Intuition an attitude of expecta-
tion : 461
„ an instinctive apprehension:
568
„ an irrational perceptive func-
tion : 568
„ and sensation maternal soil of
rational functions : 568
„ compared with sensation in
introverted attitude :
„ compensating function to sen-
sation: 568
„ concrete and abstract : 568
„ definition of : 567
„ element of : 168, 461
„ in extraverted attitude : 461
etseq.
„ in introverted attitude : 505
et seq .
„ repressed in sensation type:
457. 4«o
„ seeks to discover possibilities :
483. 464, 465
„ ' subjective and objective : 368
Intuitive and sensation types, simi-
larity of unconscious in : 466
INDEX
641
Intuitive attitude : 388
,, cognition possesses character
of certainty : 568
„ discernment as shown by
Jordan : 189
„ mentality of primitive : 191
„ method of Bergson : 398
„ method of Nietzsche : 399
Intuitive Type : x8i, 191, 569
a „ thinking and feel-
ing as inferior
functions in: 465
Inundation from the unconscious,
danger of : 326, 328, 334
Invasion of evil : 235
Irrational, definition of : 569
„ nature of elementary facts:
570
Irrational Types : 468
„ „ not unreasonable
but empirical:
468
.. „ overtaken by
rational judg-
ments : 469
Isaiah : X13, 322, 323, 324, 325, 327,
328
Isis and Osiris : 289, 290
Islands of the Blessed : 55
James himself an ideologist : 390
„ Types, general criticism of :
„ Types, characteristic pairs <
Opposites in : 382
„ William, on the types : 372
seq.
James-Lang theory of affect : 523
Janet : X56, 566, 574
Janus-faced psychological moment :
578
Jehovah : 285, 333
„ transformation of : 320
Jeremiah : 71
Jerusalem, on the reason : 383
Jesus and Satan (symbol-forming
process) : 6x0
Jew, the wandering : 331
Jewel, fate of : 331
„ nature of in Spitteler’s work :
320, 329
„ redeeming nature of: 329,
530 # 33 *
Jews, medieval persecution of : 331
„ the, as symbol of repressed
elements: 331
Job, Book 0 f : 333
Jodi: 359
Jordan, as possible introvert : 205
Jordan's description of types : 184,
2x4,215,404
„ impassioned type compared
with Gross' sejunctive type :
346
„ types, special description and
criticism of: 191
Julian the Apostate's discourse upon
King Helios : 99
Julian r s discourse upon Mother of
the Gods : 17
Juno Ludovisi : 156, 158
Kant : 57, 58, 152. 377, 383, 390,
395. 4*4. 508, 522, 548, 559
„ as introverted thinking type :
484
„ on nature of the idea : 548
„ on reason, an introverted
view : 384
Kant's postulate of God, freedom,
and immortality : 395
Keratines, the ' horned-one ' fal-
King^onGnostic symbolism: 289
Kingdom of Heaven : 266, 305, 309,
Klin 0 r • 269
Kohler: 289
Kore of the mysteries : 288
Krishna : 243
Kubin : 483
Kule, in Barlach's Der tote Tag :
321, 325
Kulluka: 242
Kfllpe : 526, 543
Kundry : 269, 270
Kwei of Tao : 267
Lalitavistara : 221
Lamb, Epimetheus’ raging against
the : 229. 236
Landmann : 588
Lao-Tse : 83, 149, 151, 264, 268
Lasswitz : 549
Lateraa Council : 84
Lehmann: 543
less-impassioned type of Jordan:
185, 188, 341
'levelling of ideas' (Wernicke):
Leviathan : 325, 333
L6vy-Bruhl : 106, 165, 365, 530, 572
64a
INDEX
Libido as psychic energy, not
psychic force : 571
„ definition of : 571
„ detachment of, from object :
304
„ detachment of, from both
sides : 147, 149
,, splitting of : 29, 256
Libido-concept: 262
„ „ and Brahman-con-
cept: 249
„ -symbols : 246, 250
Litasf and°di^iiKS : 5*9.543.544
\Lkvop : 289
Iipps : 358 . 36 «. 382, 5 * 5 . 535
Literary figures, representing func-
tion-complexes 01 author : 601
Living form, Schiller’s symbol of :
134. 145. 158. *67. 330
„ symbol : 605
Logos : 54* 83, 256
Loretto, Litany of : 274, 283, 284,
285, 292, 296
1 Lost art thou when thou thinkest
of danger * (Nietzsche) : 352
Lotus of Bodhisattva : 221
Lotze : 55
Lully, Raymond, conversion of : 542
Luther: 84
Macbeth: 322
Maeder's prospective function : 536
Magic cauldron of Dagda : 288
Mfrgiral powers ana the older
nationalities: 233
Magna Mater: 290
Mahabharata : 243, 244
Maher-shalal-hash-baz : 327
Man as mere function : 94
Manas as form : 254
„ as psychological function of
introversion : 253, 254, 256
„ as serpent-like nous : 256
„ or reason : 252, 253, 256
Manu t Book of: 242
Margaret in Faust : 273
Mananus, Doctor, in Faust : 274
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
(Blake) : 414
Mary the divine harlot : 234
Mask or persona : 590
Mater Gtoriosa : 234, 273
Materialism: 210
„ and idealism : 387, 389
„ as extraverted character : 389,
433
Materialistic and theosophical think-
ing equally negative : 445
„ explanations as superstitious :
445
„ mentality: 433
Mathematical term as symbol : 603
Matter : 289
Maturity, relative, of the two
types: 407
Maya : 221
Mayer, Robert : 403, 404
Measure and number, methods of :
518
Mechtild von Magdeburg : 285
Mediatory product, superiority of
(symbol) : 609
Medieval Christianity : 176, 285
„ mysticism : 285, 299, 302
„ psychology, problem surviving
from : 298
Megara : 39
Megarians : 38
Meister Eckehart: 152, 297, 299,
300 , 303 , 3<>4. 3<>5. 3i 1 * 3M*
318 . 334
„ Eckehart, on relativity of
God: 303, 304, 305, 314,
„ Eckehart on soul : 305
Meisterlieder , of Colmar MSS. : 287
Mephisto, personification of nega-
tive thinking : 444
„ as archaic elements of Goethe :
Mephistopheles, interpretation of:
, * 55 , 540
„ the medieval Epimetheus : 2 32
Messiah or Mediator : 241
Messianic prophecies : 322
Messias in Spitteler myth : 335, 336
' Metaphysical ' signifying 4 uncon-
scious 1 : 178
Method, constructive, as intuitive :
538
„ over-valuation of : 512, 313
„ reductive and synthetic : 83,
3;*. 313. 536. 537. 577. 578.
584
Meyrink : 160, 483
Middle disposition of Schiller : 147
Mind and speech, question of pre-
cedence : 253
Minerva as soul-figure of Prome-
theus : 216, 217, 223
Miracle of Hellenic ' will ' : 178
Misautic (Weininger) : 474
Mithraic influence on ecclesiastical
art: 288
INDEX
$43
Mitra : 251, 258, 260
Mneme (Semon) : 475, 556
Moleschott's dictum : 444, 535
Moltzer, Miss M. : 569
Monism as introverted attitude : 396
„ versus Pluralism (James) : 396
Monophysites : 30
Monsters, the two great, of Brah-
man : 254, 256
Montanus : 22
Mood : 450, 543. 545
„ as feeling-valuation of con-
scious situation : 543, 544
Moral problem for introverted in-
tuitive : 509
Morality, extraverted : 4x8
More-impassioned type of Jordan :
185
Morton Prince : 588
Mosaic morality : 263
Moses* basket of rushes : 286
Mother-dragon, motif of : 325
„ -Earth as source of all
power: 302
Mother of Cod in Divina Commedia :
„ of tLe Gods : 1x7
Mothers, heavenly, in Faust : 233
Mother-transference : 598
Miihler and Schumann : 526
Miihler, Max : 248
Muratorian Canon : 275
Mysteries, Grecian : 174, 176, 288
Mystica Vannus Jacchi : 209
Mystical collective ideas (L6vy-
Bruhl) : 530
„ thinking of introvert : 482
Mysticism, German : 285, 299
Myth, West African : 26 7
Mythological world of introverted
sensation type : 503
Myths as psychic product : 241, 6x5
„ astral and lunar : 241
Nahlowsky on higher or ideal
feelings : 521, 543
Naive and sentimental poetry in
relation to typical mechan-
isms: X65
„ attitude : 165
Nakai Toju, the Sage of Omi : 268
Napoleon : xox
Narcissism (Freud) : 598
Natalis solis inuicti : 289
Nartorp : 535
Natural beauty as Western criterion
of art : 360
Natural-science method, overvalua-
tion of : 5x9
Naturalism, discussion of : 262, 263,
264
Nature and culture : 113
Nature-process, law-abiding regu-
larity of and in : 581
Necessity for recognition of types of
attitude : 621
Negative character of dependent
thinking,: 443, 444
„ thinking, its destructive char-
acter : 444, 452
„ thinking, personified as Mep-
histo : 444
Negroes' dreams and motives of
Grecian mythology : 556, 624
Neo-Platonic views : 117
Nestorian controversy : 33
Nestorius : 33
Neurasthenia as neurosis of intro-
verted feeling type : 495
Neurosis, duality of attitude in : 527
„ from suppression of infantile
filflim.q j 425
Nicolai tans : 26
Nietzsche : 37, 93, 122, 123, x6x,
*7°. 237, 261, 298, 35*. 399.
400. 477. 484. .535. 542 .
„ and Schiller, artist nature in :
176
„ as introverted thinking type :
484
„ as advocate of power : 298
Nietzsche's * Attempt at a Self-
criticism ' : 177
„ conception of Grecian char-
acter : 170
„ intuitionism : 399
„ own type : 182
Nirdvandva : 242, 243, 244, 269
Nominalism and Realism : 37, 63,
63. 349. 374. 398
„ as extraversion : 374
Norm, collective : 562, 563
* Nothing but * style of thinking :
444. 45*
Nous, of Gnosis : 256
Novum : 133
Nu or Nut : 289, 290
Obatala and Odudua : 267
Object-animation, as a priori pro-
jection: 365
„ -imago : 600
Object, dynamic animation of : 365
644 INDEX
Object, influence of, upon thinking :
380
„ potency of, depends upon pro-
jection of soul-image : 597
„ overvaluation of : 309
„ unconscious depotentiation of:
366
Objective catastrophe of extravert :
424
„ mind, assumption of : 627
„ plane, definition of : 572
„ values (rational) : 583
Objects, inner and outer : 210, 591
Observer, judging and perceptive :
4?7
CEdipus: 39
Olympian Spring , by Spitteler : 240,
599
Olympus, middle world of : 171, 174
One-sidedness, as eign of barbar-
ism: 255
Ontological proof : 34
Opposition between sensation and
thinking ; 130
„ concept of: 250
Optimism versus Pessimism
(James) : 389
Optimum of life : 263
Oriental art, impulse of (Wor-
ringer) : 364
Orientation, definition of : 572
Origen : 23, 38
Organic inferiority, of Adler : 531
Ostwaid : 239, 4°** 535
Other-world : 2x8, 222
Overvaluation of instruction by
word and method : 512
Paganism : 230, 231, 233
Pagan influence on Christian sym-
bolism : 288, 289, 290
„ thinking : 107
Pairs of Opposites, Brahmanic : 242
Pallas Athene : 218
Pandora, box of : 329
„ comparison of Goethe's with
Spitteler’s : 223
„ gift of, as symbol : 228, 319
„ interlude of Spitteler : 218,
219
„ jewel of : 220, 221, 222, 228,
3i9, 329, 338
„ of Goethe : 223, 225, 226, 234
Pandu : 243
• Parables of Christ : 309
Paradisiacal state : 308, 320
Paradiso of Dante : 273
Paradox and relativity, unavoidable
end of intellectual effort : 628
Paramatman : 243
Parameshtin : 247
Paranoia : 553, 583
Parent-complex: 157
Parental influence, factor of : 415
Parsifal : 98, 259, 269, 270
„ as reconciler of the opposites :
269, 270
* Participation mystique ’ : 106,
120, 165, 279, 316, 36 5, 366,
524. 534, 553, 572
' „ mystique ', definition of : 572
Paschasius Eadbertus : 33
Passive thinking, as irrational : 6x1,
612
Patanjali : 243
Paul, St, and symbol of the Cross :
602
„ „ conversion of : 575, 577,
578
Paulhan : 2x3
Pelagian controversy : 32, 33
Pelagius : 33
Perseveration phenomena . 338
Persian religion : 174
Person, introvert's concern with
his : 488
Persona : 208, 209, 210, 590, 592,
593, 594, 595
„ and soul, relation between :
594, 595, 596
„ as collective attitude : 590
„ as false self : 268
„ as function-complex : 591
„ as outer attitude or char-
acter : 593
„ identification with : 595, 596,
597» 598
„ projection of : 598
„ represented in dreams : 596
Personal as opposed to individual :
590
„ unconscious : 615, 6x6
Personality : 406, 407
„ dissolved in feeling of the
moment: 445
Personification of unconscious : 2x2,
306
„ significance of : 254
Pessimism of Schopenhauer : X70
Peter, St, vision of: 577, 580
Phallic symbols : 296
Phantasies as representations of
energic transformations :
262
„ development of : 3x2
INDEX
645
Phantasm : 573, 581
Phantasy : 69, 75, 154, 312, 378,
554, 573-581
„ active and passive : 574, 575
„ activity, common to all four
functions : 547
„ as imaginative activity : 573,
581
„ as symptom or symbol : 580
„ creative, and individuality :
575
„ definition of : 573
„ image : 554
„ latent meaning of not cer-
tain : 576, 580
„ law-abiding principle in : 580,
581
„ manifest and latent meaning
of : 575. 578. 578, 580
Phantasying not identical with
passive thinking : 61 1
Fhilautic (Weininger) : 472, 474
Phileros : 227, 229
Philhellenitm : 232
Philosopher, and typical personal
attitude : 619, 620
Philosophy, English : 398
„ German : 400
„ Modem, the Problem of Types
in : 372 et seq.
Physiological differences of indi-
viduality (Gross) : 346
Pius, brother of Hernias : 278
Plaksa fig-tree : 221
Plate : 38, 40. 44, 45, 47. 50, 53,
378 . 548
Play, as dynamic principle of
phantasy : 82
Play-instinct of Schiller : 134, 140,
146 , 154
Pluralism as extraverted attitude :
396
Plurality of personalities in same
individual : 588, 589
Plutarch : 40
Fneumatici : 18, 190
Poimen, or The Shepherd: 284,
293
Porphyrius : 23, 52
Positive quality of extraverted
thinking : 442
Possession by demons : 278
Powell on primitive thinking : 42
Power and love as incompatibles :
298
Power-attitude : 572
„ -complex, definition of : 582
„ -illusion of introvert : 478
Power-psychology, unconscious basis
of : 477
Pragmatism (James) : 390, 397, 398,
400
„ a makeshift : 399, 400
Prajapati : 247, 248, 231, 252, 253,
259
Prana, or breath of life : 248
Pre-condition, psychological : 619,
620
Predication, principle of: 41, 45,
~ 47 , 50
Pregnancy of the soul : 595, 596
Primary function of Gross : 338
„ „ intensity of, dne
to attitude : 355
Primeval symbol represents future
truth : 484
Primitive, and loss of soul : 278
„ idea of God : 301, 302, 304,
310. 316, 534
„ languages (suffix of the thing
living) : 365
„ psychology, reappearance of:
484
„ thinking and feeling : 534
„ relation to object : 365
„ spirit, revival of : 230
Primordial image : 149, 250, 265,
267, 269, 271, 272, 277, 378,
384, 476, 481, 490, 500, 548,
550 , 555 . 556
„ image, a mnemic deposit : 556
„ image, a recapitulatory ex-
pression of living-process:
557
„ image, a self-living organism :
560
„ image as compensating factor :
272
„ image as idea and feeling : 490
„ image as psychic mirror world:
500
image, definition of : 556, 557
image expressing creative
power of psyche : 557
mage, expression of energic
process : 560
image maternal soil of idea :
557 a ,
mage, nature and function
of: 272, 557
mage necessary counterpart
of instinct : 560
image reconciling idea with
concrete feeling : 558
image, rftle of in introverted
thinking : 481, 482
646
INDEX
Primordial unconscious state : 553
Primum in mundo fecit deus tim •
orem : 361
' Prindpia explicandi ' : 56, 627
Principium individuationis, Apollo
the image of : 17 3
Principle, guiding, irrational nature
of : 323 . 324
Printer, case of the too-extra-
verted: 424, 425
Problem ot different typical atti-
tudes : 619
Processes with and without sym-
bolic meaning : 606
Procrustean bed : 121, 180
Projection, a process of dissimila-
tion : 567, 582
„ a process of introversion : 583
,, active, an act of judgment:
,, deSmition of [vide Introjec-
tion) : 566, 582
„ dependent upon identity : 553,
582
„ in paranoia : 583
„ of soul-image : 596, 597. 59$
„ passive and active : 582
Projections, nature of: 294, 307,
365. 566, 582
„ of intuitive type : 467
Proktophantasmists : 101
Proletarian philosophy : 50
' Prolific * and 1 devouring ' classi-
fication of Blake : 336
Prolific type of Blake : 336, 414
Promethean attitude : 228, 229,
298, 319
Prometheus as introverted atti-
tude : 207, 216, 218, 227
„ comparison of Goethe’s with
Spitteler’s : 215, 217, 218,
223
„ condition of, in unconscious :
2x9
„ figure of tradition : 2x6
„ fragment of Goethe : 216,2x8,
234
„ intervention of : 335
„ of Goethe as extravert : 226
„ relation to his soul : 208, 210,
214, 2x6, 2x7, 2x8
„ reply to angel : 207, 211
Prophets in Israel (introverted
intuitive type) : 507
Prospective function of Maeder : 536
„ meaning of symbols : 536,
607, OTO
Protagoras of Plato : 2x6
Protestantism: 84
Psalms: 283
Psychoasthenia, introvert's neurosis .
479. 484
Psyche and consciousness : 536, 557
„ and soul, distinction between :
588
„ creative factor of : 579
„ definition of : 588
„ independent collaboration of
556
Psychiatric view of Christ's psycho-
loi
7i
type problem in : 337
et sea .
Psychic content as dynamic system :
581
„ inertia: 230
„ process, object as well as
subject : 622
„ relation between the different
types : 470
„ structure : 211
Psychici : 18, 190
Psycho-energic process : 521
„ -galvanic phenomena (Bins-
wanger) : 523
Psychological differences of men :
618
„ types due to identification
with superior function : 564
Psychology and methods of mea-
sure: 518
„ larger conception of : 75
„ of the oppressed : 497
' Psychology of the unconscious \
difficulty raised by : 626
Psychopathic states : 337
Ptah-tenen, hymn to : 290
Puer Aetemus : 336
Purposive standpoint in relation to
phantasy : 57$. 579. 580
Pushan»Sawftr, sun : 248
Pythagoras : 114
Rapport: 470
„ between rational and irra-
tional types : 470, 471
Ratio : 382, 383, 387
„ Schiller's conception of : 133
Rational, definition of : 583
„ explanation as Utopian ideal :
570
„ types judged from their con-
scious psychology : 433
„ types, limitation of sensation
and intuition in : 454
INDEX
647
Hational types, subservience to
chance of the : 456
„ type, the unconscious of : 455
Rationalism as psychological atti-
tude: 382
„ as monistic (James) : 373
„ logical and feeling : 382
„ synonymous with intellectual-
ism (James) : 373
„ versus Empiricism (James) :
382. 387
Rationalist types (James) : 373
Ratramnus : 34
4 RiagibiliU * of primary function :
Reactive rapidity, criterion of
(Ostwald) : 401, 403, 408, 410
Realism : 37, 63, 374
„ as introversion : 374
„ of extraverted sensation type :
457
Reality-adaptation, value of images
for : 312
Reason and objective values : 583
„ as capacity to be reasonable :
383
„ as disposition of the will : 383
„ as organ of balance : 280
„ as source of idea (Kant) : 383
„ incapable of creating the
symbol: 322
„ laws of : 584
Reasonable judgment refers to
objective as well as subjective
factors: 496
Rebirth, meaning of : 222
Recapitulation of extraverted irra-
tional types : 468 st seq.
„ of extraverted rational types :
452 et seq .
„ of introverted irrational types:
51X et seq .
„ of introverted rational types :
495 et seq .
Reciprocity between thinking and
sensation : 132, 133
Reconciliation of Delphic Apollo and
Dionysos: 174
„ of differentiated with un-
differentiated functions :
223, 23X
„ of the opposites : 323, 608
„ of Prometheus and Epime-
theus : 227, 236
Reconciling Symbol as Principle of
Dynamic Regulation : 257
„ Symbol, Brahmanic concep-
tion of : 247
Reconciling Symbol in Chinese philo-
sophy : 264
„ Symbol, Nature of, in Spit-
teler : 320
„ Symbol, significance of : 234,
320, 608
Redeeming effect of living social
symbol : 605, 607, 608
„ factor associated with devas-
tation : 327
„ middle path: 242
,1 symbol, effect of : 334
„ symbol, essential qualities of :
324, 326, 327
Reductive, definition of : 584
„ method: 78, 312, 313, 536,
537. 538, 577. 578, 584
„ method as collective : 538
„ thinking of empiricist : 385
4 Reflective nature ’ of Jordan : 183,
188
Reformation, the : 84, 293, 3x8
Regression converted into progres-
sion : 325
„ of libido : 231, 608
Regula fidei : 19, 198
Relativity of God among the
primitives : 301, 302
„ of Idea of God in Meister
Eckehart : 297 et seq .
„ of the Symbol : 272, 300
Relaxed attitude characteristic of
extravert: 356
Religion as general attitude : 229
„ Indian and Chinese : 242
„ limitation of James 4 concept
of: 393
„ Western forms of : 241
Religious attitude and feeling : 29X,
39*
„ character of collective ideas :
271
„ devotion, state of : 156, 157,
159
„ form in Spitteler : 239
„ function as universal psychic
constituent: 392
„ symbol, value and meaning
of: 158
„ system, effect of upon indi-
vidual phantasy activity:
70
„ understanding of the problem :
177. *39
Religiousness versus Irreligiousness
(James) : 39X
Reminiscence-complexes : 157
Rtarasat, Charles de : 62, 64, 65
646
INDEX
Renaissance : 107, 230
Renunciation of greatest value : 252
' Representations Collectives * (IAvy-
Briihl) : 530
Repression of feeling, etc., by
intellectual formula : 437,
438
H of feeling, its disastrous re-
sults : 438, 439
„ of painful content (Freud) :
615
Retrogressive orientation : 107
Reverie : 547
Rhoda, as soul-image: 275, 276,
277, 278, 280, 293
Ri and Ki, the two world-principles :
268, 269
Ribot : 543, 588
Riehl on consciousness : 536
Rigveda, hymn of : 251
Rita as libido-symbol : 261
„ as source of energy : 260
„ concept of: 151
Rite, meaning of : 257, 258
Rita-concept corresponding with
Tao : 264
Ritual-murder notion : 332
Roman auguries : 282
Romantic type (Ostwald) : 401
„ type as extravert : 404
,, type, academic activities of
(Ostwald) : 408
„ type, external reaction of :
410, 411
Roscellinus, Johannes : 53
Rosicracian solution : 231, 234
Rousseau : 104, 1x2, 113, 127
Ruggieri, Archbishop : 236
Running amok : 256, 278
Ryochi, as individual Self : 268, 269
„ as summum bonum : 269
„ paralleled with Brahman as
light: 269
Sacred Books of the East : 242 et seg.
Sacrifice, necessity of : 309, 313
Sacrificium intellects : 22, 25
„ phalli : 2 5
Sage of Omi : 268
Salvation - phantasy of idealistic
woman: 599
Samadhi: 243
Samskaras : 306
San-tsai, the three chief elements :
267
Saoshyant: 331
Sarepta, widow of : 257
Satyr of Dionysian choir : 173
Saul, interpretation of vision of:
577* 579
„ of Tarsus, example of enantio-
dromia : 542, 574, 575
Savage v. Barbarian
Saviour, birth of : 322, 323, 331
Scepticism, attitude governed by
object : 396
Schen of Tao : 267
Schiller and Goethe : 88, 102, xx8,
I2X
., on Idealist and Realist : 168
„ on naive and sentimental
poetry : 163
„ on reciprocity of the two
instincts: 133
„ on * semblance ’ : 162
„ on two basic instincts : 123,
140
Schiller's age and world of Greece :
91, 92, 170
„ attitude to Type problem :
S3, 207
„ conscious attitude of abstrac-
tion : 1x8, X19
„ * Golden Age ' : 108
„ intellectual concept of Beauty:
in
., introverted feeling of inferior-
ity: 119
„ letters on Msthetic Education
of Man : 87 et seq.
„ mediatory state : 161
„ ode An dxe Freude : X79
„ pair of opposites : 115
„ symbol as philosophical con-
cept : X14, 148
„ third instinct : 134, 146
,, transcendental way : in, 114
„ type: 89
Schiller, F. C. S., of Oxford : 398
Schisms, psychology of : 293
Schizophrenia (Bleuler) : 6x5
Scholasticism : 52, 62
Schopenhauer : 123, 152, 153, xvo,
178, 237, 239. 269, 383, 309.
399, 549, 559, 584
„ on nature of the idea: 549,
559
on the reason :
383
Schopenhauer’s attitude : 237
Schultz on Tertullian and Origen :
20, 26
Science and religion : 392
„ only one of forms of human
thought: 56
' Scientia intuitiva * (Spinoza) : 568
INDEX
649
Scientific empiricism : 385
„ literature, abundance of : 434
„ separatism : 381
„ theories as symbols : 603
Scotus Erigena : 34
Seasonal analogies of myths : 241
Secondary function (Gross) : 337,
338
,, function, criticism of Gross'
concept of: 353
„ function, effect of personal
and milieu influence upon :
354
Seer or disciple, as Brahman : 247,
248
Sejunction (Wernicke) : 342
Sejunctive personality (Gross) : 342,
34 *
Self and world as commensurable
factors : 478
„ as a possible aim : 144
as Brahman : 245, 246, 247
, as opposed to ego : 475, 476,
a ^. 47t
under Ego : 540, 585
„ differentiation of, from the
opposites: 144
., the individual : 475
„ true and false of Toju's
teaching : 268
„ unity of : 306
Self-divestiture, need of (Wor-
ringer) : 368, 369, 371
Self-regulation of living organism :
371 . 53 a
Semblance, Schiller's apologia for:
162
Semiotic as opposed to symbolic :
3 a, 534, 601
Semon: 475
Sensation, abstract, as directed
function : 587
„ an irrational function: 456,
587
„ and intuition : 587
„ as conceived by Schiller : 124,
131
„ concrete and abstract : 586
„ definition of : 585
„ element of: x68, 179, 456,
534. 535. 585
„ extroverted : 456
„ in introverted attitude: 498
el sea.
„ normal and pathological : 587,
538
„ repressed in intuitive atti-
tude : 462
Sensation Type : 181, 182, 191, 456,
587
„ type, difficulty of rational
approach to : 461
Sensation-presentation : 130
Sensational and intuitive attitudes :
388
Sensationalism as empiricism : 387
„ as function of sensation
(James) : 388
„ as reflexive attitude : 388
Sensuality versus spirituality (sym-
bol) : 608, 609
Sensuous instinct of Schiller : 124,
129, 131
„ relatedness as concretistic :
534
Sensuousness (Sinnlichheit) as
psychological attitude : 388
Sentimental attitude : x66
Sermo of Ab&ard : 65, 398
Service of Woman and Service of
the Soul : 272
Sex, the types uninfluenced by : 4x3
Sexual function and general atti-
tude : 529
Sexual interpretation of Parsifal:
270
Sexuality not the fundamental
problem: 270, 271
Serialization of feeling and, think-
ing (Freud) : 539, 588
Shadow of the extrovert : 203
Shadow-effect of the two kinds of
thinking : 432
Shepherd, The , of Hermas : 275
Sign as opposed to symbol : 82,584,
601
Siiberer: 537
Silesius, Angelus, on relativity of
God: 3x7
‘ Simulation dans le caracUre 9 : 2x3
Sinister : 282
Socrates' dialogue upon beauty : 53
„ Nietzsche's attack upon : 178
Socrates' rationalistic attitude : 182
Somnambulism : 588
Song of Songs : 284, 285, 286, 287,
296, 297
Sophia- Achamoth : 234, 288, 290
Soul and masculine and feminine
txaits: 594
„ as autonomous complex : 305,
306
„ as birthplace of God (Ecke-
hart) : 3x1
M as established character ox
entity : 594
65 °
INDEX
Soul as function of Godhead (Ecke-
hart) : 315
„ as function of relationship :
209, 210, 279, 306, 310
„ as image of God (Eckehart) :
310
as perceptive organ of uncon-
scious : 311
„ as personification of uncon-
scious : 2i2, 306, 309, 310
„ character of, deducible from
persona: 595
„ definition of : 588
„ historical ways of viewing
the : 310
„ identification with : 396, 598
„ in league with undifferentiated
function: 226
„ loss of : 278, 309
„ Meister Eckehart on the : 305,
315 ,
ip nature of : 21 1, 212, 273, 305,
310, 329 . ^ .
„ or inner attitude (antma ) :
593-596
„ pregnancy of : 595, 596
„ primitive view of : 306, 310
„ projection of : 596, 597
„ prospective symbolic char-
acter of: 596
„ psychological view of : 306
„ service of : 272, 279
Soul-image : 276, 277, 283, 310
„ „ as vessel of devotion ' :
279, 280
„ „ definition of : 596
„ „ malevolent character of:
599
a „ projection of : 597
„ „ represented by woman :
597, 598
„ „ when not projected :
599
Soul-stuff or soul-force of the
primitive : 365
Spear of Klingsor : 269, 270
Speech (Vac) as extra verting libido
movement: 252
Spencer and Gillen on primitive
mentality : 42, 316, 3 66
Spinoza : 568
Spiritualism : 210
Spiritus phantastious : 137
Spitteler as poet : 236
Spitteler’s principle of solution;
272
„ Prometheus and Epimetheus ;
to 7 * *4°' 3*9
Spitteler' s Prometheus as compared
with Goethe's : 215, 217, 218
„ type : 215
Stigmatization of Saints : 393
' Still waters run deep ' (introverted
feeling woman) : 492
Stilpon of Megara : 40, 50
Stimer : 93, 237
Stobaeus : 541
Stoic concept, el/Map/jJurj : 32, 261
„ teaching : 280
Sub specie aetemitatis quality of sub-
jective perception : 500
Subject and object relation as rela-
tion of adaptation : 414
„ as inner object the uncon-
scious : 591
„ as only competent judge of his
motives : 454
„ extraverted repression of : 423
„ meaning of: 591
Subject-object identification : 294,
*95, 553. 5.63. 57*. .58*
„ -object identity, as hindrance
to collective organization:
295
Subjectification, morbid, of con-
sciousness: 474, 475, 477, 488,
49*
Subjective as epithet : 472, 473, 474
„ catastrophe of extravert : 425
„ factor, as firmly established
reality : 473, 474
„ factor, importance of : 473
„ factor in introverted psy-
chology : 477
„ factor, its value only relative :
474
„ factor, meaning of the term :
473, 59i
„ perception, influence upon
thought, feeling, and action:
502
„ perception, nature of : 499-
502
„ plane, definition of : 599
„ process inseparable from
thought: 431
Subjectively orientated thinking:
43 1 * 432
Subjectivity, anti-real, of intro-
verted sensation type : 502
Sully on abstract feelings : 521
Summum bonum : 269
Sun and Wind as proceeding from
Prajapati: 252
„ Brahman as : 247. 248
Sun-goddess: 320
INDEX
*51
Surya or sun : 248, 251
Swedenborg's transformation : 542
Symbiosis : 132
Symbol a complex creation: 606,
607
„ arising from conscious and
unconscious co-operation :
606
„ as effecting transformation of
libido : 291, 295, 296, 297,
313
„ as living thing : 602, 605
„ as middleway : 324
„ as reconciling function : 608
„ as value for life : 159, 163,
291, 293, 294, 295, 605
M definition of : 601 et seq.
„ dependent upon attitude of
observer : 603
„ dual character of : 141, 162,
266, 607
„ effective nature of : 291, 605
„ efficacy of : 141, 144, 157, 605
„ general, and loss to the indi-
vidual : 292, 293
„ Goethe's choice of : 231
„ irrational : 267, 322
„ nature of, in Spitteler: 329,
33 °
„ new : 298, 520, 329, 335
„ of Divine birth : 313
„ of god with bull's head : 604
„ of God-renewal in Spitteler's
work : 240, 241, 320
„ of life, as conceived by
Sehiller : 134, 148, 158, 267
. „ origin of : 144, 146, 158, 291,
293, 295, 296, 605, 606, 607
„ reconciling conscious with un-
conscious: 326
„ representative of inferior func-
tions; 3£0
„ social and individual : 605
„ social validity of : 580
Symbols as shaped energies : 3x1
„ of the great natural mysteries:
Symbol-?>earers : 225
„ -forming process as biolo-
gical function : 294
Symbolic determinant of the will :
Symbolical attitude : 604
Symptom as distinguished from
symbol : 606
„ or symbol (phantasy) : 580
Symptomatic actions (Freud) : 606
Synesius : 137, 139
Synthetic character of introverted
thinking ; 489
„ defined under Constructive:
5361 810
„ method : 83, 312, 313, 536
„ or constructive : 536
Systole and diastole: 11, 179, 252,
263
Tabula rasa, human mind as : 377
Talbot, P. Amaury : 290
Tao as creative essence : 266
„ as irrational fact : 267
„ as symbol : 266, 267
„ concept of : 151, 264, 268
„ meanings of : 264
„ national religion of : 264
Tao-te-king, of Lao-Tze : 265
Tapas, or self-brooding : 149, 150,
248, 252, 259
Tat twam asi : 149
Taylor: 54
Teacher, inferior man never a good :
5*3
Temperaments, four ancient : 403,
404
„ human, clash of (James) : 372,
374
Templars, order of : 298
Templum pudoris : 286
Temptations of Christ : 70
Tender and tough-minded as intro-
vert and extravert : 374, 382
Tender-minded and tough-minded
(James) : 373. 374, 382
Tense attitude characteristic of
introvert : 356
Tension between conscious and un-
conscious: 532
„ psychic, an expression of
libido : 356
Tertium non datur : 52, 133
Tertullian : 19, 288
Tewekkul-Beg, the Mohammedan
mystic: 43
Thalamus , or bridal chamber : 286
Thema, ' approfondissement ' of :
34 i
„ or leading idea of Gross : 338,
339
Theory of cognition : 42, 209
„ of types, Jung's previous con-
trioutions upon : 6x3
Theosophical thinking : 444
Theosophy : 210
Thesis and antithesis in symbol-
formation : 607, 6 q8
652
INDEX
Thibetan prayer, ' om tnani padme
hum * : 221
Thin and thick characters of James :
374 . 375
Thinking, active or directed : 61 1
„ an E^imethean appendage to
feeling, in extraverted feel-
ing type : 449
nd feeling
and feeling as collective func-
tions : 530. 531
and feeling, concretistic : 533,
and Reeling types as rational :
452 , 570
attitude : 572
both kinds necessary as
mutual correctives : 433
definition of : 61 1
dependent upon feeling : 612
enticing to the surface : 443
in extraverted attitude : 428
et seq.
in introverted attitude: 480
et seq.
infantile and negative, of
extraverted feeling type :
„ passive or intuitive : 61 1
„ process, relation of, to sub-
ject: 430
„ two sources of : 428
„ type : 4.34
Thomas Aquinas : 58
Thought-activity, active and pas-
sive : 611
Thyestian feast : 39
Tibullus: 361
' -tion ' and ' -ness ’ (' -heit ’ and
4 -heit ') : 212, 213, 226
Tishtrya Lied : 261
Toju, on nature of God : 268
Tondi : 304
Totem animal, assimilation to :
Tower of Babel : 283
Tower-symbol, the : 283, 284, 285,
293, 296
Transcendent function: 145, 159,
313. 562. 610, 612
Transference, a feeling-into process :
360, 567
„ state of : 567, 573
„ to object, as extravert’s de-
fence : 369
Transformation erf attitude : 240,
297
„ of libido: 29X, 295, 296,
297
Transubstantiation, problem of : 33,
84
Treasure-symbol : 309
Tree, the chosen : 221
Tristan , of Wagner : 298
Truth identified with extravert and
his formula: 440
Tschuang-Tse : 83
Type, definition of : 612
Types described by author not the
only possible ones : 621
„ function : 412
„ general-attitude : 412, 414,
529 . 530
„ general description of the :
412
„ mutual prejudices of the
(James) : 373, 39 ©. 3 $i
„ random distribution of : 413
„ rational and irrational : 6x2,
613
„ social : 530
Typical conflict of introverted think-
ing type : 90
Tyrant, psychology of : 594
* Ugliest man ' of Nietzsche : 161,
Unconscious activity : 616
„ and conscious, compensatory
relation of : 422
„ and justification of experi-
‘ ence : 614
„ apperception : 615
„ as determining factor: 307,
308
„ as historical background of
psyche : 21 1
„ as world of spirits : 310
„ compensatory function of :
6x6
„ contents, homogeneity of : 624
„ counter-position to intellec-
tual formula : 441, 542
„ definition of: 613
„ embodied in a woman : 441
„ intervention between subject
and object : 502
„ not psychic caput mortuum :
508
„ personal and collective : 615,
6x6
„ product as symbolical expre*
sion : 536
237, 540. «
Ugolino : 236
Ular : 268
INDEX
*53
Unconscious world of images : 21 1
Unconsciousness of anima , or soul :
597
„ of persona: 598
Undifferentiated function incapable
of direction : 540
Uniform human psychology, the
assumption of : 622
„ regulation of life, questionable
efficacy of : 618
Uniformity of conscious psyche an
academic chimera : 624
* Unity of Being * of Eckehart : 308
Universalia, controversy upon : 37,
38, 52, 62, 374
Universality of the types : 4:3
Unredeemed elements projected
upon the Jews : 332
Upanishad philosophy : 263
Upanishads : 152, 243, 245, 246,
248. 263, 300, 390
Uterus symbolism : 289, 290
Vac as Logos : 256
„ as name : 254
„ as principle of extraversion :
253. 2 54. 256
„ or speech : 252, 253
Valentinian school, classification of :
190
Varuna : 251, 258, 260
Vas, interpreted as uterus : 286
„ sapienticB . 290
Vase of sin : 289
Vayu, or wind ■ 248
Vedas : 243, 258
Vedic conception : 242
„ hymns: 258 et seq.
Vena, or Gracious One * 247
Veraguth: 523
Vessel of devotion : 279
Vessel symbol, significance of : 291
„ -symbolism : 286, 287, 288,
289, 290, 296
„ symbolism, extra - Biblical
origin of : 288 et seq., 296
„ symbolism of Gnosis : 289
Vibrations, theosophical explana-
tion of : 445
Vicvakaxman : 253
Vina : 543. 5»5
Virgin, symbol-attributes of The:
274, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288,
289, 296
m pregnancy of, as irrational
condition: 322
Virgin-worship, a vestige of Pagan-
ism : 290, 292, 293, 296
Virginity, symbols of : 286
Vischer, Fr. Th. : 369, 480
Vitality of psychic content, neces-
sitating two opposite theories:
626
Volipresence, concept of : 85
Vulcan : 223
Wagner, Nietzsche's change of atti-
tude to : 542
„ as advocate of love : 298
„ as thinking portion of Faust :
255
Wagner's Parsifal ; 98, 269, 292
Wandering Jew, The : 331
Wang-Yang-Ming : 269
Wamecke : 304
Weininger : 472, 474, 475
Wermcke : 339. 342
Western forms 01 religion : 241
Whale, the invisible, of Behemoth :
335
Will, a secondary psychic pheno-
menon : 547
„ and instinct : 565
„ as disposable energy : 144
„ as energic process : 617
„ definition of : 616
„ efficacy of : 140, 144, 145
, „ lacking in primitive mentality:
617
„ metaphysical, of Schopen-
hauer : 178, 315
* Will of God ' : 236
Winged-wheel of railway employes :
601
Witch-delusion of Middle Ages :
293
Woman, old, as the Church in
Hermas story : 280, 281,
284
„ service of : 272, 292
Wender-child : 221, 320, 323, 332
Word, magical power of, 59
World an aesthetic not moral
problem to perceptive *ypes:
5°7 t
„ gaming the: 309
* World as will and Idea ' (Schopen-
hauer) : 549, 559
World-reason, pre-existing: 584
Worringer : 358, 360, 361, 362. 364,
368
Wulfen's Cicerone d. rUcksichtslosen
Tjh*nsecnu$sts : 458
INDEX
654
Wundt; 359, 384. 5*9. 5«. 5*4.
5*5, 5*7. 543. 544. 548. 585
„ on reason, an extraverted
empiridstic view : 384
Wuwei, concept of : 268
Yainavalkya : 246
Yaksha=aspect or daemon : 254
Yama, or sun : 248
Yang and Yin, Taoistic pair of
opposites : 267
Yoga, practice of : 150, 156, 243
Yogasutra, of Patanjali : 243
Zarathustra as the Self of Nietzsche :
„ of ^Nietzsche : 123, 178, 182,
229, 237, 239, 240, 399, 610
Zeller: 541
Zerebrale SekundarfunkHon , oi
Gross : 337
Zwingli : 84, 85
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